The Gospel According to the Matrix

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The Gospel According to the Matrix
Eric Santillan

The Matrix has been called by some moviegoers as a modern-day rendition of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. We notice for example the different binary opposing themes found in both the film and the Allegory: appearance/reality, dream/wakefulness, shadows/forms, virtual reality/actual reality. Similar to the Allegory of the Cave, the basic question of the Matrix is: what if what I think of as the real world is not really real? What if I am in “a cave”? Or more specifically in the movie: “How do I know that this world I’m living in, is the real world and not a virtual reality program created by artificial intelligence?”

Which also sounds like Descartes problem in Meditations on First Philosophy. How do I know that I am not just dreaming? That I am not a fool imagining all this in my mind? How do I know that I am not being deceived? And a more fundamental question: of what can I be certain about? Where can I find the ground of certitude?

In the film, the question of truth and the presuppositions that go with it were presented as a choice: the red pill or the blue pill. A choice between actual reality and the illusion of the Matrix. Cypher, the villain, chose illusion. Neo, the main character, chose actual reality. Neo’s choice, of course, is what the film upholds.

Notice that the choice of Neo hinged on an experience of searching. Neo was already searching for a long time, feeling some kind of dis-ease, “knowing” vaguely that there must be something more to the world he is experiencing at the moment. The choice of Neo hinged on a perception that there is truth out there and truth–if it is to be truth at all–must be sought and found.

As Morpheus would describe it, “You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.” There were moments of doubt and skepticism, but his curiosity about the possibility of finding “the truth”, as well as that gnawing feeling led him to Morpheus.

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