The Science of the Matrix 479
KamehamehaWarrior writes "Peter B. Lloyd, author of Taking The Red Pill: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in The Matrix, believes that many of the plot developments in "The Matrix" that seem to contradict the laws of physics, biology, etc. can actually be explained with a closer look at the science. He addresses issues such as "Can humans really be an energy source? How does the Matrix know what fried chicken taste like? Why do the rebels have to enter and exit the Matrix via a telephone system (that doesn't actually exist)?""
Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:5, Interesting)
little too much free time on his hands.
The breakdown of the Bio-Port is wonderful. It's really a
fantastic explanation of how the Bio-Port could work, and what
it would be doing.
The Red pill, I've always seen this as similar to some type of
virus that is injected into the system. His deconstruction is
similar in flavor to what I thought.
The power plant is great. Rather than humans being the energy
source, they are a giant Beowulf cluster. Maybe Beowulf (the
hero) was the first Beowulf after all.
I thought Entering and Exiting the Matrix was interesting, but I
didn't find the arguments as compelling in this section for some
reason. There just seem to be too many special exceptions for
my taste.
Overall this article has some real potential, and definately
helps with the suspension of disbelief process that is so
crucial to any story telling. A bit of a warning though, it's
long, really long.
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:5, Funny)
Neo: zZzZzZzZzZzZ?
Trinity: zZzZzZzZzZ!
Neo: zZzZ ZzZz???
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:5, Funny)
More like this:
Neo: zZzZzZzZzZzZ?
Trinity: zZzZzZzZzZ!
Neo: zZzZ... whoa.
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:5, Interesting)
This brings up an interesting thought: Why the hell are the machines allowing the Earth's atmosphere to be breathable? Since it would seem the humans' "scorching of the skies" killed off all conventional life on earth other than the humans and the machines, and the machines don't need oxygen, and the only humans that the machines need alive are incased in liquid, couldn't the machines just win a huge victory by unexpectedly flooding the earth's atmosphere with something unbreathable?
Then again, maybe that is exactly what the machines did? We never see any humans go outside during the Matrix, and the only human city is underground. There's that bit at the end where the Nebucannazar (sp?) gets cut open, but we don't see what happens after the EMP blast; maybe the instant the squiddies are dead, the remaining living humans on the hovercraft have to go running for the oxygen masks.
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:3, Interesting)
"--You know what my first big problem with [the Matrix] was? Why use only humans as your energy source? Why didn't we see pods with elk, or some higher-metabolism life form that's easier to please, like puppy dogs? They wouldn't even need some fancy-pants simulated world; just give 'em a loop of chasing rabbits and having their bellies scratched and you've quelled all possible chance of rebellion!"
--Hsu and Chan
But seriously.
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:5, Funny)
After a few years, however, the machines got tired of waiting for Star Wars Galaxies to be released, so they built the human version of the Matrix.
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:2)
It all reminds me very much of "The Deathgate Cycle", a 7 book series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Although, throughout those books, as Haplo becomes less of a mystery, he also seems to become less godlike. Neo, on the other hand, is the opposite.
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Article helps with suspension of disbelief (Score:5, Interesting)
If you believe in God/Angles, perhaps, they have 100's of sensory inputs reading stuff we aren't even aware exists. (ie, a computer program who only has one light sensor with it's limited consciousness will assume all of reality is what comes from that light sensor. humans will assume all of reality exists in light, sound, smell, and touch.)
Also, if you think about the religious explanation of existance, god said let there be light, and there was light. god said that there be land, and sky, and there was land and sky. god said let there be animals, and there was animals. sounds like a hacker working in the wee hours of the morning building simcity. and if god exists, that's really what we are. we don't even exists in his reality. we are way less real than him, limited in knowledge, senses, and ability. the same kind of limitation's a computer program would have. also, when jesus comes down to earth, it would be like us entering in a matrix like fashion our sim city game.
And if you take satan's anger at human-kind, it is understandable. it's like your robot being pissed at you for playing sim city all the time. it tries to destroy your computer, so you lock it in the closet. and when you're done playing sim city, your going to pull out some of your favorite sims and place them into robot bodies.
Slashdotted (Score:2, Funny)
Google Cache (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the Google cache [216.239.57.100].
It's all good! (Score:4, Insightful)
To be honest, I had no idea "how deep the rabbit hole" really went. The Wachowski brothers are brilliant IMHO, and have one of the most immersive universes I've ever seen. The movies aside, and franchisements out the window, this stands to be one of the most engrossing and amazing "thresholds" of our timeframe.
And although the naysayers might argue, the Matrix is to me, and many of my friends/family/colleauges, as Star Wars was to the generation two decades ago.
Re:It's all good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Out of curiosity, how many people didn't like it? I enjoyed the Matrix when I first saw it, but it really doesn't survive the "Let's drag it out once a year and watch it." test with me. Just curious, anybody else feel that way too?
Not trying to troll here, I just don't see it as the "Star Wars of the late nineties" if it doesn't survive. I'd rather assign that title to the Two Towers.
Re:It's all good! (Score:3, Interesting)
The yardstick I'm using to measure the validity of my statement is the fact that for myself and many others I know, it -does- infact stand the test of being dragged out once a year (or heck, once a quarter in my case) and watched time and time again... And each time I get chills.
And it's not the special effects that do it for me, not all of it anyways. A
Re:It's all good! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the Matrix preloaded.
Re:It's all good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's all good! (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, maybe none would, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't or even couldn't. Here's what C.S. Lewis had to say about it in "On the Reading of Old Books":
Re:It's all good! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's all good! (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, a movie that is much closer to "The Allegory of the Cave" is "The Truman Show."
True-man show, get it? I don't think The Matrix really fits with Plato's allegory very well, Neo doesn't realize he's a prisoner on his own, he gets a lot of help. In the Truman Show everyone is trying to prevent Truman from find out the truth, which is much closer to Pl
Re:It's all good! (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:It's all good! (Score:2)
Re:It's all good! (Score:2)
If that's true, I pray for your soul. To compare the two movie series is blaphemous.
Re:It's all good! (Score:2)
OTOH Matrix was a pretty nice movie with a nice story and lots of insider jokes for adults interested in philosophical matters. Some ridiculous plot holes do not make the movie crap.
What they both have in common is awesome and ahead of their time special effects.
I guess you meant it the other way
Re:It's all good! (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly, I really liked the matrix alot. It wasn't hyped when I saw it so I had no idea what to expect (I was actually expecting another sub-par Keanu movie). I was blown away, it had lots of awesome action themes all mixed together - guns and ammo, martial arts, computer hackery, electronica soundtrack, etc. I thought it rocked.
That said, I thought the dialog was rather weak and cheesy at times. Philosophically there was no
Re:It's all good! (Score:3, Interesting)
When I see The Matrix, I don't think philosophy, I think mythology.
Have you ever read Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces? It treats mythology from a Jungian/Freudian psychoanalytic perspective. All of the major elements of classical mythology are present in films like Star Wars or The Matrix.
Taking the opening The Matrix as an example:
Am I missing something? (Score:5, Funny)
And no, I can't RTFA... it's
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:3, Interesting)
The article attempts to explain how the matrix can know the taste of fried chicken, but not the taste of anything else.
An online Starcraft RPG? Only at [netnexus.com]
In the matrix, soviet russia jokes about you!
Mirror: (Score:4, Informative)
The Agents (Score:2, Funny)
HERE IS THE TEXT OF THE ARTICLE (Score:5, Informative)
GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM
by Peter B. Lloyd
Why, exactly, do the rebels have to enter the Matrix via the phone system (which after all doesn't physically exist)? And what really happens when Neo takes the red pill (which also doesn't really exist)? And how does the Matrix know what fried chicken tastes like? Technologist and philosopher Peter Lloyd answers these questions and more.
To be published in Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix (Ben Bella Books, April 2003). Published on KurzweilAI.net March 3, 2003.
As the essays throughout this book demonstrate, the Wachowski Brothers designed The Matrix to work at many levels. They carefully thought through the film's philosophical underpinnings, religious symbolism, and scientific speculations. But there are a few riddles in The Matrix, aspects of the film that seem nonsensical or defy the laws of science. These apparent glitches include:
The Bioport--how can a socket in your head control your senses? How can it be inserted without killing you?
The Red Pill--since the pill is virtual, how can it throw Neo out of the Matrix?
The Power Plant--can people really be an energy source?
Entering and Exiting the Matrix--why do the rebels need telephones to come and go?
The Bugbot--what's the purpose of the bugbot?
Perceptions in the Matrix--how do the machines know what fried chicken tastes like?
Neo's Mastery of the Avatar--how can Neo fly?
Consciousness and the Matrix--are the machines in the Matrix alive and conscious? Or are they only machines, intelligent but mindless?
This essay addresses these questions and shows how these seeming glitches can be resolved.
THE BIOPORT
Can the machines really create a virtual world through a bioport? And how does it work? The bioport is a way of giving the Matrix computers full access to the information channels of the brain. It is located at the back of the neck--probably between the occipital bone at the base of the skull, and the first neck vertebra. Wiring would best enter through the soft cartilage that cushions the skull on the spinal column, and pass up through the natural opening that lets the spinal cord into the skull. This avoids drilling through bone, and maintains the mechanical and biological integrity of the skull's protection. A baby fitted with a bioport can easily survive the operation.
The bioport terminates in a forest of electrodes spanning the volume of the brain. In a newborn, the sheathed mass of wire filaments is pushed into the head through the bioport. On reaching the skull cavity, the sheath would be released, and the filaments spread out like a dandelion, gently permeating the developing cortex. Nested sheaths would release a branching structure of filamentary electrodes. As each sheathed wire approaches the surface of the brain, it releases thousands of smaller electrodes. In the neonate, brain cells have few synaptic connections, so the slender electrodes can penetrate harmlessly.
With its electrodes distributed throughout the brain, the Matrix could deliver its sensory signals in either of two places: at the sensory portals or deep inside the brain's labyrinth. For example, vision could be driven by electrodes on the optic nerves where they enter the brain. Artificial signals would then pass into the visual cortex at the back of the brain, which would handle them as if they had come from the eyes. Correspondingly, outgoing motor nerves would also have electrodes at the boundary of brain and skull. This simple design mirrors the natural state of the brain most closely. It is not, however, the only possibility. Electrodes could alternatively be attached in the depths of the brain, beyond the first stages of the visual cortex. This would greatly simplify the data processing. In normal perception, most of the incoming information isn't processed; information you aren't paying a
Re:HERE IS THE TEXT OF THE ARTICLE (Score:4, Funny)
Umm, I don't like to break this to you, but karma whoring doesn't work if you post as an AC...
HERE IS THE REST OF THE ARTICLE (Score:4, Informative)
Agent Smith is an example of a machine that manifests humanlike behavior--which, if you witnessed such words and gestures in a human, you would immediately regard them as showing conscious emotions and volitions. Indeed, it is the immediacy of the interpretation that is deceptive. When you see someone laugh with joy, or scream in pain, you do not knowingly infer the person's mental state from those outward signs. Rather, it is as if you see the emotions directly. Yet, we know from accomplished actors that these signs of emotions can be faked. Therefore, you are indeed making an inference, albeit an automatic one. It is a job of philosophy to scrutinize such automatic inference. When you see another human being emoting, your inference is not based wholly on what you see, but also on background information (such as whether the person is acting on the stage). More fundamentally, you are relying on the reasonable assumption that the person's behavior arises from a biological brain just as yours does. Whenever those premises are undermined, you inevitably revise any inferences you have made from the emoting. If the emoting stops and people around you clap, you realize it was a piece of street theatre, and the person was only acting out those emotions. Or, if the person has a nasty car accident that breaks open his head, revealing electronic circuitry instead of a brain, you realize that it was only an android and you may conclude that it was only simulating emotions.
A key step in the inference is the premise that the emotion plays a role in the causal loop that produces the outward words and gestures. If, instead, we have established that the observed words and gestures are wholly explained in some other way, without involving those emotions--then the inference collapses. The exterior emoting behavior then ceases to count as evidence for an interior emotional experience. If we know that an actor's words and gestures are scripted, then we cease to regard them as evidence for an inward mental state. Likewise, if we know that the words and gestures of an android or avatar are programmed, then they too cease to support any inference of a mental state.
In an android, or in a software simulation of a human such as an agent, words and gestures are produced by millions of lines of programmed software. The software advances from instruction to instruction in a deterministic manner. Some instructions move pieces of information around inside memory, others execute calculations, others send motor signals to actuators in the body. Each line of code references objective memory locations and ports in the physical hardware. It may do so symbolically, and it may do so via sophisticated data structures, for example, using the tag "vision-field" to reference the stabilized and edge-enhanced data from the eye cams. Nevertheless, nowhere in the software suite does the code break out of that objective environment and refer to the enigmatic contents of consciousness. Nor could the programmer ever do so, since she would need an objective, third-person pointer to the conscious experience--which, being a subjective, first-person thing, cannot be labeled with such a pointer.
Everything that the android says and does is fully accounted for by its software. There is no explanatory gap left for machine consciousness to fill. When the android says, "I see colors and feel emotions just as humans do," we know that those words are produced by deterministic lines of software that functions perfectly well without any involvement of consciousness. It is because of this that the android's emoting does not provide an iota of evidence for any interior mental life. All the outward signs are faked, and the programmer knows in comprehensive detail how they are faked.
This point is systematically ignored by the mathematicians and engineers who enthuse about artif
Why make it difficult when it's so simple? (Score:4, Interesting)
These films are not about some possible future. Like all SF, they're about the here-and-now, but masked. What kind of power do the machine masters get from the duped people? Political power. What are these machines, descended from human constructions? Corporations.
The movies are a metaphor for the world you, personally, are living in right now. You are duped by years of schooling and television to limit yourself to being what amounts to a popsicle in a jar. The corporations still need your votes, so they use the media apparatus they own to mess with your perceptions of reality so much that you actually vote for their automatons.
Cut yourself off from the media feed, and meditate to still the yammering voices, and you may reprogram your own perceptual reality, as Neo does, and discover endless possibilities inconceivable to the dupes and pink boys.
Simple, albeit not easy.
From Allegory to Madness - Matrix vs Terminator (Score:3, Interesting)
The tip-off that it is a madness are the difficulties in maintaining plausibility an
Here is a top level mirror only (Score:4, Informative)
but beware my server isn't too beefy.
www.dailystatic.com/Matrix.html
You can read the article, but none of the links inside of it work.
Fiction (Score:2, Insightful)
The Physics of Star Trek" then I'll pass. Can you say "fiction?"
Oh, and if it's been slashdotted, here are some mirrors:
Link 1 [martin-studio.com]
Link 2 [martin-studio.com]
And for the love of Ted.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:And for the love of Ted.... (Score:2)
Your brain can carries out 10*10000^(the number of brain cells you have) floating point multiplications per second.
Try and match that one with a computer system.
Fear and Loathing... (Score:2)
Re:Fear and Loathing... (Score:2)
Try watching Matrix Reloaded to see what reading material really inspired the movie.
Re:Fear and Loathing... (Score:2)
Of course... (Score:2)
That said, its a very impressive article!
An online Starcraft RPG? Only at [netnexus.com]
In Soviet Russia, all your us are belong to base!
Wow (Score:2)
purpose of keeping humans around? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, one would assume that a lot of machines can process information faster than a lot of human brains.
So my question is, why are the machines taking the risk of keeping the humans around? why not just kill us off.
Re:purpose of keeping humans around? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just repeat to yourself, "It's just a show, I should really just relax."
At the end of the day it's "robots vs. kung fu". What could be cooler?
Re:purpose of keeping humans around? (Score:2)
Re:purpose of keeping humans around? (Score:5, Funny)
It's gonna take a pretty amazing computer to equal or beat the processing power of a human brain. And, at the risk of repeating a cliche, "Imagine a beowulf cluster of those!"
Re:purpose of keeping humans around? (Score:2)
Contradictions in this guys arguments. (Score:2)
On the other hand, the author argues that the brains are being used for nuclear fusion calcuations without any particular side-effect towards their thinking processes or perceptions inside the matrix.
Is it just me or is this just more pseudo-intellectual
Um (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically he takes the movie he liked, the ideals and the perceptions, and he fills in the blanks.
Why do they use telephones?
Answer: It's a movie.
His Answer: They put network addresses on all data points along the matrix and blah blah blah
How does the blue/red pills work?
Answer: It's a movie.
His Answer: "the avatar's software module must be able to accept instructions to cancel out any given sensory input."
And, lastly, my favorite:
What/How does the Bugbot do/work?
Answer: It's a fucking movie.
His Answer: "Trinity says that Neo is "dangerous" to them before he is cleaned. We can infer that the bugbot is actually a munition, probably a semtex device that will detonate when it hears Morpheus's voice, killing both Neo and Morpheus and everyone else in the room."
This guy is just making shit up. Yet you know somewhere somebody is going to really put some thought and invest some time into thinking about this bullshit. Jeez. Where's Penn and Teller [sho.com] when you need em?
Re:Um (Score:4, Interesting)
Obviously you've never worked on a big storytelling project.
There are a lot of things within the story world that the creators spend a lot of time thinking about. When it's well done, that thinking goes well beyond "wouldn't red or blue pills be cool?" to actual thought about how the people in the real world could track down people in an immense simulation. Obviously the science won't be perfect, but don't think for a second that the creators of the Matrix of lots of other scifi films don't have a good idea how their world operates.
Projects like The Matrix start out with "woah man, what if the world were just a simulation?" and from there evolve into functional worlds. Machines took over and wired up humans. Why wire them up instead of killing them all? For power. Why not use solar energy or some other source? Sky was darkened. Why not give them a perfect world they wouldn't want to escape from? Their brains won't accept it. This kind of question and answer is what leads to stories.
Storytelling is important. It has been for years. The people who stop to look at how good stories are told are the ones who will be able to tell stories of their own.
Re:Um (Score:3, Funny)
And often in the form of bad fan fiction.
Re:Um (Score:4, Funny)
His Answer: They put network addresses on all data points along the matrix and blah blah blah
Yeah, how depressing is it to know they're still using ipv4 (9.54.296.42 -- example in the article) in the future? Obviously the 296 octet gives it away as an invalid IP, but it's STILL an ipv4-style address.
Guess IPv4 is here to stay for a while.
Shayne
The Matrix Computer (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Matrix Computer (Score:3, Interesting)
up with that very explanation before the first movie even
came out.
It's a great read too, probably one of the better side stories
I've seen.
Re:The Matrix Computer (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider this suggestion of running the Matrix process on the human brain as if it was a node in a distributed cluster. There's a great deal of Matrix information stored in the brain, but there's also a human consciousness alongside it in there, unaware that there's data flowing through your unused neurons. "Freeing your mind" could consist of gaining the ability to allow your consciousness to attach to the Matrix simulation the same way a debugger attaches to an existing process (or an aimbot attaches to CS), gain access to its data, and start poking values. The AIs would have to allow individual nodes to be authoritative to realize any net gain, so any changes you imagine to your own Matrix node would be propagated to others as reality, and you would be able to "will" your strength to increase the same way your aimbot can "will" perfect headshots at 100m. This would also explain why hacking the Matrix involves so much activity that resembles meditation/concentration techniques.
Re:The Matrix Computer (Score:2)
Re:The Matrix Computer (Score:2)
Re:The Matrix Computer (Score:2)
Bonkers (Score:2)
Hell is Other People (Score:3, Interesting)
The paradox of Neo "freeing" people from the Matrix is that real freedom only exists within the simulation. Those who have been enlightened have the power and will to function outside of normal environmental limitations in the "real" world. Everyone else is just a peasant.
The Matrix: April 15th edition: (Score:3, Funny)
Neo: Oh! Shit! My TAXES. TRINITY! HELP!
heh.
Since when is... (Score:4, Interesting)
IMHO, it's a lot more common than many people are willing to admit; and the mental/philosophical "construct" we use every day is every bit as large and fascinating as the "construct" used in the movie.
Classical examples from science: At one time, the Earth was substantially flat. It also revolved around the Sun. QED.
It will be interesting to see if science per se can make anything of this, let alone go beyond its own limits. All I'm saying is that maybe the limits of science are actually the limits of the mind, given a material form.
Why do they get in through the phone system? (Score:4, Insightful)
No big deal.
Does the article explain "THE NEED"? (Score:3, Funny)
nice expcept fo the machine-consciousness bit (Score:2, Insightful)
Another good book is called... (Score:2)
(I need to finish reading it and get it back to the library before they send me to collections.)
Well, if it helps ya along.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The interesting thing is how powerfully The Matrix affects people who watch it. Much like ritual theater [google.com] has done through the ages, some kind of genuine awakening (not in the Buddhist sense, necessarily) seems to often occur.
One question is, of course, how to maintain the awakening. How to stay aware that, in some sense, life is real-and-unreal.
Another is the status of the "demiurge" - the thread (or blanket) of evil which we find in the world around us. It's not for nothing that Agents look like people from the government; there has ever been the conciet that government somehow causes spiritual enslavement, rather than being the mere result of it.
Of course, for what it's worth, I recon that the people are sleeping because it is night-time.
Someone should've told... (Score:4, Funny)
You see, (Score:2)
That spare capacity remains available for others to exploit, and the rebels use it to download kung-fu expertise into Neo's brain and to implant helicopter piloting skills into Trinity's. If the Matrix ever learned this technique, it could create havoc for the rebels, implanting impulses to serve its own ends.
Actually, I was working on this feature for Matrix 4.0. They scrapped the project when the bros decided to make it a trilogy. Now, I am unemplyed
"Combined with a form of fusion" (Score:5, Interesting)
Question: Isn't it true that a nuclear fusion reaction, if you can figure out how to make one, takes an absolutely fantastic amount of energy to initiate and maintain? I know nothing about nuclear physics, but what i've read seems to indicate that the point of fusion is that you put a fantastic amount of energy in and you get a fantastic amount of energy back. The problem so far is that no one has figured out how to get out more energy than you put in.
So wouldn't it be logical to say that the huge mass of humans *are*, in fact, a net energy drain because energy is needed to create whatever protein the humans use for IV foodstuffs, but they are needed and maintained becuase they can at any time desired be used briefly as a massive source to pull energy from? Note that Morpheus doesn't say that humans are used as generators; he says they're used as batteries. Wouldn't it make sense to suppose that perhaps the human race encased in the Matrix is just there in case the sustained fusion reaction the machines are actually using to generate their power ever goes out and has to be restarted, or in case the machines need to start up a new reactor? Meaning basically, the Matrix is nothing more than a giant UPS? Does this make any sense at all?
None of this, of course, explains why the machines, given a level of technology that would make it possible to build both Zion and the Matrix, wouldn't just harness tidal energy as a power source! Did the americans finally blow up the moon or something?
Anyway, as far as the article's parallell processing thing goes, that seems really silly to me. If the machines have figured out how to use human brains as processors, wouldn't they build the machines themselves using human brains as processors to run the AIs on? You could claim "how do you know they aren't", but i'll tell you how i know they aren't: if they can control biological material to that extent, then they can make machines that the EMP blasts are useless against. I do, however, really like the article author's insinuation that Morpheus actually has no idea what the Matrix is for, and erroneously believes it's a power plant.
(One totally non-power-related possibility of what the Matrix could be used for: possibly the machines really just don't like the idea of making the human race extinct. They don't want the humans running around in the real world and working against the machines' designs, but they're for whatever reason not okay with just wiping the humans out; maybe they don't actually hate the humans, they just don't want the humans to be a threat. Maybe the Matrix is just a means of preservation of the human race, one that the machines get nothing positive out of except as a memento of their creators. (Hitler's original plans for the holocaust apparently stated, after everything was done, the world was conquered, and the holocaust was complete, that one single village of Jews should be left alive, sealed off from the outside world, and allowed to simply live on their lives. In Hitler's warped mind this was supposed to be some kind of preserved-in-amber cultural museum of a dead race, just so future aryan generations could know they existed. I cannot remember the exact details of this and may be partially misremembering it in that there wouldn't actually be any living people in this preserved-in-amber village. Does anyone know what i'm referring to? Anyway, possibly the Matrix is something of that sort.). Or, possibly, the machines actually believe they are working in the humans service and they put the humans into the matrix "for their own good", as some kind of highly warped overzealous implementation of Asimov's zeroth law, on the logic if the humans are trapped in a digital fantasyworld, if they knock themselves out with nuclear holoca
Re:"Combined with a form of fusion" (Score:2)
w00t!
Re:"Combined with a form of fusion" (Score:2)
joke (Score:2)
*ducks*
Very good, but.... (Score:3, Funny)
But then you'll say...
My thinking (Score:3, Insightful)
of them matching his though...BTW, I've only
skimmed the article, don't have that much time
I agree with him on much of it, but wow, talk
about detail!
The Bioport--how can a socket in your head control your senses? How can it be inserted without killing you?
Easy enough. It fits with the massively parallel computer theory later. They need to figure out the
data transfer to and from brain, so this would be
the next step beyond that, control of the brain
to receive and send specific signals.
The Red Pill--since the pill is virtual, how can it throw Neo out of the Matrix?
This "red pill" meant to me that you are ready to
wake up from complete control. Sort of like you
were in hypnosis, now the fingers are snapped and
you're awake!
The Power Plant--can people really be an energy source?
Yes and no. I too thought of the brain power
theory. It seems to fit and makes for interesting
theories. (ie. does the Matrix run on human brains
for power and computing power as well? So humans
are feeding their own minds?)
Entering and Exiting the Matrix--why do the rebels need telephones to come and go?
This too I figured was a navagational issue. It
seems to be easier to send data around, so if you
knew of a data point, you could get to it. Why
certain ones? Perhaps so you don't go hunting
for that cordless between the cushions?
The Bugbot--what's the purpose of the bugbot?
Bugbot tells Agents where it is. Perhaps it's just
an identifier, a certain string? Look for that
string, and you've got him. Sort of how virus
scanners work?
Perceptions in the Matrix--how do the machines know what fried chicken tastes like?
Completely made up and arbitrary. Does it matter?
Neo's Mastery of the Avatar--how can Neo fly?
Neo can fly because he's mastered the Matrix. I
thought of it more as he can now reshape the
Matrix near him to do what he wants. Kind of like
a virus, or bug.
Consciousness and the Matrix--are the machines in the Matrix alive and conscious? Or are they only machines, intelligent but mindless?
Both. Give it kind of a Terminator scenario,
except keep the humans, their brains and body
come in handy. The machines are just overthrowing
the people that built them, perhaps they
got out of hand too.
Vip
Loved the article til I got to this part... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems that the author lacks the perspective to get this last one right. Agent Smith comes from another world completely, and is trying to express emotions and concepts that are completely alien. What must it feel like to be a noncorporeal entity that usually resides in abstract softwareland, that once in awhile has to interact in a simulation so complex that it must be mapped to its own abstract reality-experience? I mean, here you are trying to explain to Morpheus your disgust (which you do somewhat well at) over a sensory experience that has no exact analog in the simulation? If a human could feel this, would it seem more like a taste, more like a smell? A combination of the two? He is doing this best to bridge a gap that none will ever do... Morpheus can hardly go to software-land to see what it feels like there. If he did, and tried to communicate, would the evil AI's be convinced that he isn't truly sentient, because he fails to completely understand their alien and unnameable sensory experiences, of which he himself interprets as something similar to smell/taste, or sight/hearing? The "sight/hearing" experience might actually be 7 distinct sensory experiences, which the human mind confuses as a single concept.
I for one do believe that emergent properties in a complex or chaotic system can produce our much overhyped "consciousness". But even if they can't, the author himself suggests that the machines may be based on a technology that would allow it to happen. I can only assume that he is biased toward his own species, to biology... maybe that's not such a bad thing. But maybe if we had shown a little more tolerance, given a little more benefit of the doubt to Skynet, it would have decided it didn't have to nuke every damn one of us to survive.
PS On the other hand, maybe we should build a manual kill switch into every candidate computer that isn't part of the blueprints or any electronically accessible record...
His superpower explanation is broken. (Score:3, Insightful)
That makes sense for Morpheus, Trinity, et al. They have superhuman powers that are comparable to the agents. However, it is said that the agents, finally, are limited by certain physical rules, and the reason that Neo is special is that he is not limited by those same rules. He can rewrite the matrix.
There are ten million different perfectly acceptable software-design explanations for these mechanics. However, the author has described none of them. If he's using special APIs, then the agents would be able to do the same shit.
Perhaps he can change code in the virtual machine (hehe. pun.). Perhaps he can change source. Perhaps he realized that the matrix was using strcpy() for a root-level process. Like I said, there are ten million different ways to explain this. But the author is wrong, and exhibits a simple failure to understand the actual movie.
A Bit Flawed... (Score:3, Informative)
Didn't Neo steal some guy's cell phone while trying to escape the Matrix, yet was able to use it to communicate with the Nebuchadnezzar? Didn't Cypher use his cell phone to dial a traceable number within the Matrix to tip off the Agents to their location?
I think a better explanation would be that cell phones can't be used because they are portable. Therefore, they cannot be "attached" to a specific volume of space. Moving al the information for an avatar from one network node to another as they move from room to room would be ridculously prohibitive, so the node that stores the information for a specific volume of space would not necessarily include portable objects like cell phones, or avatars.
Instead, the node containing the volume would contain references or identifiers to the objects within that space.
Therefore, cell phones cannot be used reliably to associate the node containing the volume with the node containing the avatar, since the cell phone itself may be on a third node all by itself. A hard line, however, would be a permanent fixture (or semi-permanent if the machines practice refactoring), so the node containing the volume of space would be gauranteed to be be the one that references the avatar.
The cell phone would not directly reference the avatar because it is not a volume of space (it would be like trying to find out what hotel you're staying in by asking, say, one of your shoelaces).
While I'm sure that explanation has its own set of holes, it makes more sense (to me, at least) than the one in the essay.
Why didn't you mention the editor's name? (Score:3, Informative)
In a case of good timing, I just happened to put the one copy I had up on eBay at:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ite
Not the Full Story (Score:5, Funny)
He failed to explain how people got hooked to the Matrix in the first place. However, I do the story. It came about that the machines were to having to draw people into connecting this plug into their head. Looking for the gullible of the human species, they bought AOL.
With the largest number of customers in the world, they quickly assimilated them with offer's of DSL for $5.95 a month and said that they were phasing out dial-up service. All you needed was this chip in the back of your head. So while most people were discouraged because of the lack of dial-up they were too lazy to change their email addresses so they were the first. Next where the techies, and /.ers. While wary of giant companies the draw for cheap DSL access was too much and it was like lambs to the slaughter. Eventually with other service providers going out of business the Matrix bought them all up and integrated their clients too. The dream of world domination at hand.
The holdouts were the 20% of people who declared that they "Would never need access." They were the one's that went on to establish Zion. They had to dig deep to escape the piles of AOL CD's that were being put into their mailboxes. It was the only way to preserve their sanity, or so the legend goes.
So now you have the complete story, oh and I hire that one of the new agents in the movie is called Mr. Case, coincidence? I think not!
Some Answers... (Score:5, Funny)
Q. Can humans really be an energy source?
A. It's just a film.
Q. How does the Matrix know what fried chicken taste like?
A. It's just a film.
Q. Why do the rebels have to enter and exit the Matrix via a telephone system (that doesn't actually exist)?
A. It's just a film.
Re:Wow. (Score:2)
Hey, Neo, use your powers to bring this server back up!
Re:The blueprints of the USS Enterprise (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The blueprints of the USS Enterprise (Score:2)
B. This guy seems to think that the Matrix is some well thought out movie that can be explained by science. It's not. It's Hollywood schlock. That's it. Put sunglasses on a pile of shit, and all you have is a pile of shit with sunglasses. It still stinks.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go write a paper discussion the
Re:The blueprints of the USS Enterprise (Score:2)
This guy had some fun coming up with some explanations and we had some fun reading them and maybe learned a couple things in the process(if his scie
Re:The blueprints of the USS Enterprise (Score:2)
Re:But, does the article explain.... (Score:5, Funny)
That needs explanation? Okay, I'll break it down for you:
- Trinity's breasts
- Guns. Lots of Guns.
- Gratuitous kung-fu scenes
- Trinity's breasts
- Pseudo-science which is readily comprehensible lets the hard-of-thinking think that they are intelligent.
- Pseudo-philosophy which is readily comprehensible lets the hard-of-thinking think that they are intelligent.
- Trinity's breasts
- ???
- Profit (Profit more once sequels released)
See? It had everything you need for mass marked appeal, and none of that 'having to think' crap that makes films unpopular.Re:But, does the article explain.... (Score:2)
s/Trinity/Jennifer Garner/
s/breasts/ass/
Oh, who am I kidding? I like the breasts too.
Re:But, does the article explain.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, don't knock it. Do you know how much easier it is to explain philospical concepts to my friends when I can start by saying, "Remember that scene in the Matrix? It's like that except..." ?
Re:But, does the article explain.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, I like quite a bit Carrie Anne Moss [imdb.com], but the first word that comes to mind when I think of her is not "stacked". She's what? A "B" cup? Maybe? The outfits she wears (although they're extremely tight
I think the reason she conne
Re:But, does the article explain.... (Score:2, Interesting)
i can't agree with you here. i'm going to try to pick apart your argument with the intention of determining whether the movie really is terrible, or whether you just didn't like it (a perfectly valid opinion, but an opinion
MOD THIS DOWN (Score:2)
The energy source versus robotic laws/ASIMOV (Score:2)
There has to be some kind or robotic law a la Asimov that makes the machines depend on the human's existance. They kind or perverted the meaning, but they can not get rid of the humans.
Re:Has it occurred to anyone else.... (Score:3, Interesting)
These films are not about some possible future. Like all SF, they're about the here-and-now, but masked. What kind of power do the machine masters get from the duped people? Political power. What are these machines, descended from human constructions? Corporations.
The whole thing is a metaphor for the world you, personally, are living in right now. You are duped by years of schooling and television to limit yourself to being what amounts to a popsicle in a jar. The
Re:Matrix: Biblical References (Score:5, Interesting)
The Matrix also closely follows Philip K. Dick's VALIS. Read that book if you find the ideas in the Matrix interesting...it has much more "source" material (like where various ideas in the book actually come from in antiquity), and it's parallels to The Matrix are rather obvious.
If you find it REALLY interesting, check out sites like The Odyssey of Gnosis [angelfire.com] and so on.