What philosophical and scientific issues are involved in The Matrix?

"A thousand people look, there are a thousand matrices."

Wake up every morning,

Is it really you who is sleepy in the mirror?

Do you have an inexplicable sense of emptiness,

Is the fact you know true?

Everything will be revealed slowly. ......

Alice in Wonderland

1860, in the British writer Lewis? With Carol's imaginative brushwork, the curious Alice fell into an elegant and magical dream world in the process of chasing rabbits. 1999, in The Matrix by the Wachowski brothers, Neo, who suspected that there was something wrong with the world, followed a sexy girl with a tattoo of a white rabbit to an underground rave party. Since then, he has been out of control and walked into the real desert.

Baudrillard

In the first episode, a computer punk took his little white rabbit girlfriend to Neo's house to make a deal, and Neo took out a plate of illegal software from a hollowed-out book-note that the hollowed-out book is Baudrillard's masterpiece Imitation and Simulation. This is the first time we have seen Baudrillard's influence on The Matrix. Murphy's famous line "Welcome to the real desert" comes directly from the second paragraph of the first page of the first chapter of the book.

Jane. Baudrillard, a French thinker, is also a post-modern "super" theorist with the most distinctive flag and the most obscure works. Since 1980s, his works have been widely translated into English, and Xuan quickly established his position as a "spiritual mentor of postmodern theory". Compared with Foucault and Deleuze, Baudrillard's research and thinking on consumer society, contemporary art, social form and transformation are undoubtedly more profound and enlightening, and the elephant society was put forward by him. His theory has a very in-depth study of images and is more inspiring to photography. Look at these famous sayings: "Knock down all the assumptions that there is a real world", "In a world where the cart before the horse is completely put, correctness is just a wrong action" and "Beyond a certain moment, history is no longer true, and unconsciously, all mankind has left the truth behind. From that moment on, everything that happened was no longer true ... ""Today, the whole system swings in uncertainty, and all the reality is swallowed up by the surreal simulation of symbols. Nowadays, it is no longer the realistic principle that controls social life, but the simulated reality. The purpose has disappeared, and we are now shaped by various models. "

Cyberpunk (Computer Punk)

The term Cyberpunk/Cyberspace is derived from a novel about neural computer networks by science fiction writer William Gibson (see section N below for details). In this sensational novel, Gibson invented the term Cyberspace for the first time: "Cyberspace, a communication imagination experienced by hundreds of millions of operators every day ... the data attraction mode of every computer in the human system. Very complicated ingredients. " In addition to Gibson, there are a group of hard science fiction writers in the 1980s, such as Bruce Sterling.

Cyberpunk's creed is: freedom of information, practice, decentralization and leadership. Information needs and should be open to all and used/controlled by all. Cyberpunk is also a way of looking at the world. They are addicted to high-tech tools and despise people using them in the traditional way. Cyberpark is an anarchist, they are eternal anti-authoritarians, and they are ideological bombs buried in culture.

Throughout the history of Cyberpunk, Prometheus is a model of the conservative cyber world in the west. Then the Quetzalcoatl, the Quetzalcoatl in ancient Mexico, then the freelancer, the madman ... until the matrix.

Descartes (Descartes)

One of the founders of modern European philosophy. Descartes, the great philosopher of science, tried to establish a solid methodological foundation for science. His masterpiece Meditation is actually Meditation of the First Philosophy. Descartes paid attention to the precision of thinking and did not believe in perceptual experience. He believes that only rational thinking is reliable. He began to doubt the existence of everything, swept away his prejudice, looked for the most reliable proposition as a starting point, and then made inferences. Descartes went further into the field of mathematics, but found that even mathematics was not credible. What if there is a "vicious devil" behind him that disturbs his mind? He found the most reliable fact that he was doubting himself; Therefore, there is no doubt about the existence of the mind, while the existence of the body must be inferred. That's why there is that famous saying: "I think, therefore I am." (spoon does not exist) "

He believes that ideas have two origins, one is from perceptual experience, and the other is from natural ideas. He pays more attention to the concept of talent. He thinks that the concepts of self, God, time, space, perfection, infinity and geometric axioms are just natural (obviously, the unremitting pursuit of existence/truth is also a hacker's natural concept).

Descartes also put forward the famous theory of psychosomatic resonance, that is, the physical body and the immaterial mind can influence each other.

Remember Neo's doubts in Hacker? "What if I die there?" "When the soul dies, the body will cease to exist."

E existentialism (existentialism)

Now, suppose it's not Neo who gets the red pill and the blue pill, but Jane? Paul. Sartre, Albert? Camus, Martin? Heidegger, then how will they choose? Obviously, these three existentialist masters will not hesitate to leave The Matrix and enter the real desert. It may be painful there, but it restores the truth of existence after all.

According to Sartre's point of view, Neo before awakening is just an en-soi (self-sufficient existence, such as a table), and after awakening it becomes a pour-soi (especially the existence of self-consciousness, that is, a person), which can be responsible for its own choice and existence.

Existentialism pursues absolute freedom, ultimate liberation and free choice. Show alienation and absurdity, accuse/resist all traditional habits, and only when we are fully convinced of the misery and meaninglessness of all earthly existence can we see through a prospect that rises from the ruins and leads to kingdom salvation. The sense of disillusionment, absurdity, hopelessness and nothingness is a process of atonement, just like the pain before the arrival of "Messiah". The existence of God is not the real question. What people need is to rediscover themselves. The so-called "existence precedes essence" means that people exist first and suffer various twists and turns in this world before they can define themselves-this is simply Neo's awakening experience.

fetishism

Among the many doctrines derived from The Matrix, fetishism, a traditional sexual deviation, has further evolved into a consumer digital fetishism-especially when hypermedia replaces hypertext and virtual reality replaces traditional space, which is enough to find a lot of fun in the film. Especially the infinitely fascinating bullet time: the long-term/multi-angle detention and nostalgia for an object, a certain part and an action. This corresponds to Freud's concept of fetishism: the object of fetishism is actually not a commodity, but the subject is unwilling to move.

Gnosticism (Gnosticism)

An early school of Christianity, which respected certain spiritual intuition and embraced eastern and western philosophy, was once regarded as a cult. Gnostic's worldview is binary; There are two gods in the universe, one is good and the other is evil. The most high god created a series of spiritual bodies, all of which were sacred radiation. The universe was created by a lower "creator". Matter is evil; The soul must be separated from the body, and an angel must be sent to the world from the kingdom of light (Christ). Christ may be an angel or a ghost; May also be a mortal, temporarily gain higher power. To be saved, people must accept secret rituals and gain higher "knowledge". Some people advocate repentance in ethics, but others think that physical behavior does not affect redemption, so they do not prohibit lust and lead a dissolute life.

Hedonism (hedonism)

Sever in the first episode of Hacker is a typical hedonist, who betrays the hacker organization for sensory satisfaction (a conversation with Agent Smith in a virtual restaurant).

As early as Socrates/Epicurus, the "principle of happiness only" in life was established in philosophy; Happiness is an innate thing and the ultimate goal of life. Even if someone or a group deviates from this principle actively or passively in a specific time, the purpose is still to pursue the ultimate happiness. Therefore, it goes without saying that pursuing happiness and avoiding pain are the two major prescribed actions in life. "hedonism", which few people would advocate in theory, has now occupied a large part of our lives with consumerism. Enjoy the combination of science and technology and new scientific and technological achievements, despite the current trend of popular consumer culture.

In fact, we are immersed in the network every day. Isn't this Seyff's dream steak?

I Perfect Image (Ideal Form/Cave Fable)

In Plato's view, the perfect image of ideal form is the highest realm of reality. Empirical reality is the least reliable.

Plato has a famous fable about perfect image (ideal form). In this fable, Plato has a famous "cave" fable. In this fable, Plato assumes that a group of people "live in a cave, and there is a long tunnel leading to the outside, the width of which is the same as the inside of the cave." They have been here since childhood, and their legs and necks are locked, so they are in the same place. Because you can't look back when you are locked, you can only see what is in front of you. There is a fire burning far away from them. Between the fire and the prisoner, there is a road higher than both, and a low wall is built along this road, just like the curtain of a puppet show. "People walking along the wall" carry various tools higher than the wall, and are statues of animals or people made of wood, stones and various materials. Some people with things are talking, others are silent. ""Because they (Neanderthals) can't move or turn back all their lives, the shadow projected in front of them is the only truth they can see. When people passing by talk, people in the cave will mistakenly think that the sound is coming from the moving shadow in front. "Prisoners are completely deprived of any possibility of freedom. They can only face the empty stone wall. The shadow on the wall is the only world they can have, and this fantasy makes them unable to distinguish the truth anymore.

The human battery living in the matrix is actually the future version of the cave fable. Moreover, the audience watching The Matrix is not another group of prisoners in the cave.

Jesus Christ

The moral is obvious. First of all, Neo's name is the reverse of the English word One, which also means "new". He woke up in the "machine pod" of The Matrix and was baptized on the ship of Nebuchadnezzar (from the Bible, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, who captured Jerusalem and built a hanging garden). In the first episode, Neo died first and then was killed by the Trinity. ; Father, Son and Holy Spirit wake up in a kiss. The messiah symbol of the Zionist savior fills the whole movie.

Kant

In fact, this prefix should be given to "Kung Fu"-China Kung Fu.

If we also choose red and blue pills, Kant's starting point will be different from that of existentialist giants-not to enter the real desert, but to make moral choices and pursue perfection.

Kant's theory of self-consciousness is the most influential theory in the history of European thought, which irreversibly determines the development path of European thought: first, it is the driving force for idealistic thinkers such as Fichte, Schelling and Hegel to establish systems. In his critical system, there is a grand principle of subjectivity, that is, subjective initiative is the fundamental condition of scientific epistemology. He advocated the philosophical method of analysis and criticism, distinguished knowledge from belief, advocated the moral conscience of freedom and self-discipline, and preached the ideal of a world of great harmony. The most enlightening of his works is Critique of Pure Theory. Kant puts the need of God's existence in the moral field, that is to say, although we can't prove the existence of God, this "supreme goodness" is the basis of all moral ethics. This indirect self-confirmation is a bit like Morpheus' persistent belief that Neo must be the savior, otherwise everything is meaningless.

Famous saying: "the experience of each individual is only a part of the whole range in the field of experience;" The absolute whole of all possible experiences is not an experience in itself. "

Lacan

Jacques? Lacan is the most important philosopher in France since Descartes. In Europe, he is also the most creative and influential thinker since Nietzsche and Freud.

When investigating the subject form, Lacan put forward the famous "mirror stage" theory. Lacan believes that children aged six to eighteen months use the identity reflected in the mirror to confirm their image. This made him gradually get rid of the "fragmented body" and gained the basic unity of identity. Before the mirror stage, the child only regarded his body as a pile of broken objects, and he even had a fear of this incomplete body. At this time, children can't know the integrity of the body through self-perception, such as sense of time, sense of space and sense of movement. Only their own mirror images can provide a structural whole for the subject. Of course, many times, Lacan's mirror image is just a symbol-a symbol that is located outside the subject and gives the subject a position at the same time.

The significance of "mirror stage" lies in clearly defining self. Please refer to the first episode of the hacker, where Neo reaches for the mirror and sticks to the molten metal (he sees his twisted self in the mirror). In the second episode, Agent Smith finally got rid of the mother's control and became a truly independent individual, which is also the role of "mirror stage".

Count Max

Perhaps, in Hacker 2, Morpheus (English name is the god of sleep in Greek mythology. Being in charge of dreams and distinguishing dreams from reality by drinking different water are similar to the red pills and blue pills in movies. You should refer to Marx's Manifesto of the Productive Party: "So far, the history of all societies is the history of class struggle. Free men and slaves, nobles and civilians, lords and serfs, guild masters and helpers, in a word, the oppressor and the oppressed are always in opposite positions, constantly fighting, sometimes hidden and sometimes open, and the end of every struggle is the mutual destruction of all classes in the whole society. In the past historical era, we can see that society is completely divided into different levels, and social status is divided into different levels almost everywhere. In ancient Rome, there were nobles, knights, civilians and slaves. There were feudal lords, servants, guild masters, helpers and serfs in the Middle Ages, and almost every class had some special classes. The modern bourgeois society, which emerged from the demise of feudal society, did not eliminate class opposition, but replaced the old class opposition with new classes, new oppression conditions and new forms of struggle.

There are matrices and human batteries in modern times. Our era, the matrix era, has a characteristic: it simplifies class opposition. The whole society is increasingly divided into two hostile camps: matrix and human soldiers. The human rebels in Zion, the city of Zion, are the freedom guards of the earth, the main force of the revolution and the ghost of subverting the hierarchical order of the mother.

Neuromancer

Starting from 1984, an unknown American writer, Willian Gibson, published three novels with quite strange contents and coherent scenes and plots. These three works are Neurotramp 1984, Zero Count 1986 and Mona Lisa? Lisa speeding "1988. All of a sudden, these three works set off a huge wave in the long-silent science fiction world. Gibson's three novels are sometimes called "matrix trilogy" and "diffuse trilogy". This is a unique set of works from conception to style. The story tells how a group of "computer cowboys" interconnected themselves with the computer network and gave up their bodies to enter the cyberspace for wonderful exploration. The world in the novel is bleak and gloomy, and the economic and political life is controlled by a huge Japanese monopoly consortium. The concept of company has replaced the concept of country. Only by obeying the company and swearing allegiance can you get the guarantee of life, but not obeying a company and hoping to leave it means you are betrayed. The book Nervous Roamer not only created the words Cyberspace and Virtual Reality, but also triggered the Cyberpunk wave, which greatly impacted the mainstream culture.

In addition, I would like to mention the American mathematician norbert wiener. In the fifth chapter of his book "People are Useful", he demonstrated in detail that organisms are news. Although Weiner himself thinks this chapter is a bit like "science fiction", he still thinks that the boundary between physical transmission and information transmission is not always insurmountable. He believes that creatures, including people, are patterns, and these patterns are information, information that can be transmitted.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions (Oracle)

In the city of Delphi near Mount Panassus in central Greece, there is the temple of Apollo, the seat of the famous Apollo prophet. It dates back at least to17th century, and the entrance to the temple says "Know yourself". In The Matrix, a prophet appeared, and the same sign (only in Latin) was engraved on the door.

In the film, the grandmother-like prophet baked delicious cookies for Neo. In computer applications, cookies are a small amount of information with identification function that is transmitted from the website to the user's browser and stored in the hard disk. In fact, they are a tracking mechanism, that is, automatic memory function, which allows computer users who visit a website again to read the last data. This has a mysterious connection with Neo's visit to the Prophet.

P Philip? k？ Philip dick

Great science fiction writers, whose works have been discussing the definition of human beings and the binary opposition between truth and falsehood, have been put on the screen countless times. Although his life was bleak, he suffered from phobia and depression, took drugs, broke up his marriage and died young, but he created miracles in science fiction. Dick's works skillfully combine science fiction with mysticism, personal experience, pure science and vulgar drama, creating a unique wild and mysterious atmosphere. Under the simple style and standard sci-fi techniques, it presents a deeper world-with extreme emotional experience, pure philosophical thinking and amazing opinions emerging from time to time. Like Kafka, Dick's name has become a proper noun to describe a profound literary view. His works combine science fiction with post-modernism literature of "technology first" and are known as "Borges of America".

It can be said that the whole "Cyberpunk Movement" and many branches derived from it were influenced by Dick. Dick-style themes such as political fantasy, interstellar conspiracy and virtual reality caused by drug abuse and testamentary accusation have become one of household names. Blade runner, a classic sci-fi film of 1982, is adapted from his short story "Can robots dream of electronic sheep? In addition, there are films such as Total Memory, Minority Report and Memory Cracking (interested friends can go to see my Top Ten Classic Science Fiction Films of Hollywood in Thirty Years, originally written by cherrystar). It is said that there will be three films adapted from his novels in the future, so we will wait and see.

Quine

American philosopher and logician Willard Van Orman Quine is an important representative of "logical pragmatism" or "pragmatic analytical philosophy".

In his view, the ontological problem can be simply expressed as the question of "what exists". The expression of "what exists" can be divided into two kinds: one is the question of what actually exists, that is, the fact of ontology; The other is the question of what exists in language use, that is, the "commitment" of ontology. In Quine's view, any scientific theory is an expression of "what exists".

Quine also questioned and analyzed law of excluded middle in detail in The Pursuit of Truth. Law of excluded middle's popular explanation is that "in the same thinking process, two contradictory ideas can't both be false, and one of them must be true" and "you can't neither affirm nor deny the same object". In other words, law of excluded middle demanded that two contradictory concepts must be true and false, and neither of them can be true or false. Perhaps this can be used to dispel our confusion about hacker's nihilistic worldview.

R is a real number.

It can be said that the core problem of The Matrix is Quine's essentialism questioning: "What is there" (what is existence). Is truth an objective experience claimed by existentialism, or is it just a sensory response generated by our interaction with the outside world? As Morpheus said, "What is true? How do you define truth? If you are talking about smell and vision, then the so-called is really just a series of electrical pulses translated by the brain. "

Socrates

Famous ancient Greek philosopher and founder of Plato's philosophical line. He defined philosophy as "loving wisdom", and one of his important viewpoints is: knowing your ignorance. He said that he heard the Oracle that he was the smartest man in the world, but he felt that he was not smart, so he talked with knowledgeable people everywhere and tried to overthrow the Oracle. As a result, he found that these so-called knowledgeable people have no knowledge and are not smart. Then he found that his intelligence lies in realizing his ignorance. So I'm proud of my ignorance, and I think everyone should admit their ignorance (Neo has also been tested in this way).

Socrates used to ask and answer questions when discussing knowledge and ethics. When answering questions, the two sides cross-examine each other by revealing the inconsistency in each other's answers, so that the other side falls into contradiction and has to admit their ignorance, thus leading to the truth. He called this method "midwifery", which is actually a kind of induction. Socrates' debating skills and preaching enthusiasm are quite similar to those of Confucius, and Morpheus in The Hacker also plays the role of such a spiritual mentor. He tirelessly and unswervingly convinced Neo that he was the savior.

the Trinity

Trinity, the name of the trinity, is the trinity of the father, the son and the holy spirit.

The most sacred thought recorded in Three is the Trinity. Many religions have a trinity. Catholicism and Christianity say that God is a trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Trinity and Trinity. God's nature is love, and God's father gave himself this absolute love. God is the self-acceptance and reply of this absolute love; The Holy Spirit is the self-unity of this absolute love. Buddhism has the so-called three treasures: Buddha, Dharma and Monk. Taoism has the so-called three qi, namely, Xuan, Yuan, Beginning and Sanqing, which is the embodiment of the original Buddha. In addition, in many primitive religions, such as Iranian Confucianism, Greek religion and Roman religion, there are so-called "three gods", that is, three independent and interrelated high-level gods. Confucianism is not a religion in the true sense, but when it comes to the primitive universe, it also thinks that "too Chi Yuan spirit" is "the unity of the three religions".

U Utopia (utopia)

In the book 1975 "Ignorance", the philosopher Peter? Ange further developed Descartes' concept of "evil devil" in manipulating experience and created the image of "evil scientist". The evil scientist stimulated the human brain with electromagnetic pulses, which made the experimenter lose his sense of freedom, just as he thought.

198 1 In a book entitled Reason, Truth and History, hilary putnam further quoted the philosopher's view of "brain in a vat": "A man was operated on by an evil scientist, and his brain was cut off from his body and put into a vat filled with nutrient solution to keep his brain alive. The nerve endings of the brain are connected to the computer, and the computer sends information to the brain according to the program, so that he can keep all hallucinations completely normal. For him, it seems that people, things and the sky still exist, and his actions and physical feelings can be input. This brain can also be input or intercepted (the memory of brain surgery is intercepted, and then the various environments and daily life that he may experience are input). He can even be coded to' feel' that he is reading an interesting and absurd passage here:' A man was operated on by an evil scientist, and his brain was cut off from his body and put into a jar filled with nutrient solution to keep his brain alive. The nerve endings of the brain are connected to the computer one by one, and the computer sends information to the brain according to the program. Let him keep all his hallucinations completely normal. ..................................................................................................................................... is turning things around Nowadays, virtual reality technology has been widely used and entered daily life. It seems that we have to regard this nightmare story as enlightenment and prophecy. Man is not a "brain in a vat", but he will eventually become a "brain in a vat": "Once the information superhighway is built, the grid survival of human beings will be completely realized."

Another person worth mentioning is robert nozick, who is the "treasure of the town and school" of Harvard University. He published seven books in his life, but there is no doubt that the first book, Anarchy, State and Utopia, was published in 1974, which is the most widely known, influential and likely to make him famous in the history of western political philosophy. Nozick pointed out in his book that only countries with the least government intervention and the weakest functions are the most just and valuable political organizations. The functions and rights of such a country are limited to preventing violence, theft, fraud and ensuring the implementation of contracts. In addition, the government should absolutely respect people's freedom of choice and private property rights, and should not redistribute any wealth because of other values such as equality or welfare. Basically, Matrix provides such a utopian function for human batteries. In the book, he also described such a scene: the human body floats in a huge nutrient solution container, and an "experience machine" provides us with stimulation. Just like the question put forward by The Matrix: If the machine can provide us with all the pleasure, will you choose your dreams like Saif? Nozick's return is "no" because it will obliterate all possible actions that give meaning to existence. In the "experience machine", we are just "uncertain points".

V. Virtual reality

The whole history of computer development is that the computer has developed from a machine with single human ability (computing ability) to a "humanoid machine" with multiple human functions (such as language ability), and then to almost all human functions (think about the concept of "ape"). At this time, people feel that they are not dealing with computer machines, but with "reality". This is a "Genesis"-man not only created a "man" similar to himself (just as God created man in his own image), but also created a "second reality" similar to his own reality.

On the one hand, the real world people live and experience is undoubtedly a world greatly changed by bits (that is, the atomic world (reality) based on bits). On the other hand, people can enter the second reality composed of bits and get a living experience that humans have never had before. Everyone can freely shuttle between the dual reality of "heaven" and "earth" like the gods in ancient mythology. This second reality is the so-called virtual reality, sometimes called artificial reality, artificial world, virtual world, virtual state, virtual space visual form.

Since ancient times, human beings have a desire to overcome the bondage of the real world (atomic world) and gain a desire to fly freely to the ideal world without the drag of "species". Since ancient times, they have had an imagination and imaginative possession of an unknown and unknown world. This kind of desire and imagination is manifested as dreams (dreams and daydreams) in individuals and myths and religions in the collective (nation). Virtual reality enables people to finally realize this desire and imagination in a technical way (from a lonely carnival). The whole world of the matrix can be said to be a super-large virtual game.