I'm not sure I agree about the Matrix. I think if they'd wanted to address the philosophical question of whether we can be sure what we think is real is real, they would have gone a bit further: Neo, having been extracted from what was apparently a real world and been shown from the outside how the illusion is created, would then have thought, hang on, so how do I know this isn't another one, or the same one in a different mode? How do I know the Machines haven't just responded to me failing to fit into the New York matrix by transferring me into the lead role of a sci-fi saviour-of-humanity matrix instead?
Instead, the Matrix presents a single jump out of an apparent reality into an underlying real one, and never even contemplates the question of which one if either is really real. This says to me that its aim was not to present interesting philosophy, but to set up a world in which superhero stories could be told without (as is more usual) founding it on one or more huge counterfactuals about the laws of physics. Which, modulo the occasional grating against the disbelief of really computer-savvy viewers and the egregious liberty taken with conservation of energy, it basically managed.
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Date: 2007-07-30 02:43 pm (UTC)Instead, the Matrix presents a single jump out of an apparent reality into an underlying real one, and never even contemplates the question of which one if either is really real. This says to me that its aim was not to present interesting philosophy, but to set up a world in which superhero stories could be told without (as is more usual) founding it on one or more huge counterfactuals about the laws of physics. Which, modulo the occasional grating against the disbelief of really computer-savvy viewers and the egregious liberty taken with conservation of energy, it basically managed.