The Matrix through Plato’s and Descartes’ Looking Glass

7/27/2019 The Matrix through Platos and Descartes Looking Glass

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108 Claudia HULPOI

Claudia HULPOI

Another Apocalypseto Enjoy:

The Matrix through Platosand Descartes Looking Glass

EKPHRASIS, 2/2012APOCALYPSEIN CINEMAAND VISUAL ARTS.

NEW IMAGESFOR OLD MYTHS

pp. 108-116

Abstract: This comparative approach is inspired

by the collective volume The Matrix and Philosophy.

Welcome to the Desert of the Real (2002), where ele-

ments of Buddhism, Platonism and traditional Christianism

are generally identified as the most recurrent themes of

the jazz mythology on which the narrative structure

of the Wachowskis movie is based. Our aim is to exa-

mine two specific philosophical views in their relationship

to the apocalyptic theme developed in The Matrix: these

are Platos simile of the cave (The Republic) and RenDescartes First Meditation (Metaphysical Meditations,

1694). Jean Baudrillards theory of Simulacra and

Simulation (1981) will also inform our considerations, given

that Andy and Larry Wachowski make a clear reference

to it in the first part of the movie as to a possible mise en

abyme of its philosophical grounds. Topics as reality vs.

illusion, freedom vs. manipulation, past vs. present will

be identified along the above mentioned texts as they are

mirrored by The Matrix, in the attempt to shape a possible

meaning of the apocalypse in our present civilization.

Keywords: Matrix, Plato, Descartes, Baudrillard,

simulacrum, alienation, Apocalypse.

a sensible man would remember that the

eyes may be confused in two ways, and for

two reasons by a change from light to

darkness, or from darkness to light.

(Plato, The Republic)

Looking today at the still ground-breaking Matrix through the eyes of the17th century Ren Descartes, then goingso far back as the 5th century Plato and hisanalogy of the cave to unearth other pos-sible affinities might leave us with the ee-rie feeling that the adage The future isnow is somehow outdated. For the fu-ture was, too; it just looked a litle differ-ent. Actually, every now and then art-ists and thinkers get to stimulate an en-

hanced (or apocalyptic, in its etymo-logical sense of revelation) awarenessof our relation to time and space. Andyand Larry Wachowski did just that, andthey did it in quite a spectacular way.

The success of the Wachowski broth-ers trilogy The Matrix (1999), The MatrixReloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolution(2004) was such that the phrase the

Matrix generation soon became a sortof brand name for the 21st century. The

Claudia Hulpoi

E-mail: [email protected]


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109Another Apocalypse to Enjoy:The Matrix through Platos and Descartes Looking Glass

transit from one millennium to the oth-er could but bring along all the exhilara-tion of new beginnings. However, there

must have also been an unsetling senseof some imminent end the end of some-thing. Nobody knew of what exactly, al-though some still say there is going to bean end of the world.

In 2012, were still safe and sound and,even if we fancy doing it through differ-ent glasses, we still enjoy watching The

Matrix. Maybe its precisely because it ex-

orcises our fear of the end, or simply be-cause this movie is still able to challengeus visually and intellectually. At thesame time, and this is the beauty of itsparadox, The Matrix might seem so rev-olutionary, and its impact on us ever sofresh, namely because some of the ques-tions it raises are incredibly ancient. Inour postmodern and post-human age of cybernetics and virtual realities,Descartes metaphysical doubts on thenature of reality and even Platos myth ofthe cave suddenly and oddly becomevery contemporary. The only differenceis and it makes all the difference thatPlatos philosophy, for instance, stemmedfrom a set of beliefs (strong enough to die

for, as Socrates actually did), while ourpresent civilization is being eroded, asJean Baudrillard puts it, by a simulatedhyperreality or neo-reality, with nolink whatsoever to its absent referent1.

1 "Aujourdhui labstraction nest plus cellede la carte, du double, du miroir ou duconcept. La simulation nest plus celle dun

territoire, dun tre rfrentiel, dune subs-tance. Elle est la gnration par les modlesdun rel sans origine ni ralit: hyperrel.

The Matrix is not, indeed, just anoth-er Hollywood production with a remark-able box office success. It touches some

very deep level of our perception, of ourimagination, of our mind. No sooner hadit been put out in the United States thanthe movie managed to completely seducenot only the mass public, but also may-

be especially the scholars. As Deborahand George McKnight remember, WhenThe Matrix opened in 1999, philosopherscould be found talking to one another,

either in university corridors or at aca-demic conferences, and they were tell-ing each other the same story2. In any in-troductory philosophy course you caredto name, afer lecturing on, say, PlatosCave or Descartes First Meditation, stu-dents would either put up their hands inclass or come up to you afer the lectureand say: Its just like in The Matrix.3.

Le territoire ne prcde plus la carte, ni nelui survit. Cest dsormais la carte qui pr-cde le territoire (...). Cest le rel, et nonla carte, dont des vestiges subsistent a etl, dans les dserts (...). Le dsert du rel lui-mme (Jean Baudrillard, Simulacres et simu-lation, Paris: ditions Galile, 1981, p. 14).

2 One of the outcomes of such talks is the col-

lective volume edited by William Irwing,The Matrix and Philosophy. Welcome to theDesert of the Real (2002). Afer the last partof the Wachowskis trilogy was launched,

Josh Oreck also gathered a series of filmedinterviews in his Return to Source: Philoso-

phy & The Matrix (2004).3 Deborah Knight and George McKnight,

Real Genre and Virtual Philosophy inThe Matrix and Philosophy. Welcome to the

Desert of the Real, PerfectBound e-books,Harper Collins & Carus Publishing, 2002,p. 206.


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110 Claudia HULPOI

Everything was more or less just like inThe Matrix those days, and somehow itmight still be, even if were no longer so

much aware of it.The only similarity I intend to furtherexplore here, though, is the one betweenThe Matrix and the above mentioned re-flections of Plato and Descartes. For thosewho saw the movie a while ago, and alsofor those if any who havent seen ityet, it might be useful to go over someof its significant scenes. This should helpus get more acquainted with the phil-osophical vision it shares with the firstof Descartes Metaphysical Meditations and, more specifically, with Platos anal-ogy of the cave, since the later consistsof a mythical scenario that could have in-spired Andy and Lana Wachowski morethan Descartes less dramatic philosophi-

cal speculations.Matrix, as some of us know, is the

name of a dream world, simulated bya gigantic computer program to whichthe brains of the entire human speciesare connected. Only few the happyfew manage to escape this fake reality:they choose either to openly fight it, likeMorpheus and his team, or to get shel-ter and, if necessary, defend themselvesin an underground city bearing the bibli-cal name of Zion. The others are reducedto a larval, forever fetal state, while at thesame time leading a virtual life as pris-oners of a virtual reality controlled by anArtificial Intelligence or the Architect,as we find out in the last part of the tril-

ogy. His master plan is to turn individu-als into mere sources of energy (copper-

tops) meant to fuel the machines whichhave thus come to rule the world.

Once he himself has been liberated,

Thomas Andersons alias Neo mis-sion is to free humanity from this illu-sion by sabotaging the very programthat was generating it. Although plainlyMessianic, his atempt to save the worldimplies a hypnotic choreography of jujitsu, Western and mortal combat stylefights against the Agents of the ArtificialIntelligence. The visual effects can be in-deed seducing, but there is much moreto it: were facing a subtle problematisa-tion of manipulation, alienation, extinc-tion and of our own way of relating to theworld around us, be it real, virtual, or in-

between. The words concluding the firstpart of the trilogy Im not here to tellyou how it is going to end, Im here to tell

you how it is going to begin sound likea sibylline warning message that Neo ad-dresses to the Matrix generation.

Morpheus, a key character in the mov-ie, is the one that wakes up ThomasAnderson from the digital dream heused to live in, although he did it withthe feeling that there was somethingwrong with the world. Wake up, Neo,reads the message Morpheus sends himon the computer screen. Soon follows thewell-known scene of the red and bluepill, that is, the moment when ThomasAnderson/Neo is asked to choose be-tween ignorance and knowledge. Ofcourse, he chooses to know and dosomething about it, otherwise the mov-

ie would have ended right there. OnceNeo has accepted Morpheus truth, the


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later introduces him further into the se-crets of a multidimensional world, or inthe art of transgressing the laws govern-

ing this multiple and deceiving realitywhich was actually meant to camouflagea devastated planet. Welcome to the des-ert of the real is how Morpheus greetsNeo into this post-apocalyptic humanity.

Charles L. Griswold Jr. gives us aninteresting perspective on Morpheuspart in this initiation: he notices thatMorpheus, which is, paradoxically, the

name of the ancient Greek god of dreams,plays here the role of an expert inawakening4. Griswolds considerations

become even more intriguing once we re-alize that Morpheus could very well bethe modern patron of the art of film-mak-ing, which is indeed a form of dreamingawake and also, with the Wachowskis,

an art of dreaming that we are awake...Why is the liberator in The Matrix namedafer that divinity? , wonders Charles L.Griswold Jr. referring to Morpheus. Itseems odd, afer all, that the awakenershould be the expert in sleep. The godsname comes from the Greek word mor-

phe, meaning shape or form; for the godcould summon up, in the sleeper, all sorts

of shapes and forms. Who beter than di-vine Morpheus to understand the differ-ence between wakefulness and dreams?[] It is a crucial but subtle theme of themovie that in order to awake one must firstdream that one is awake, that is, has the

4 Charles L. Griswold, Jr., Happiness and

Cyphers Choice: Is Ignorance Bliss? in TheMatrix and Philosophy. Welcome to the Desertof the Real, ed. cit., p. 129.

prophetic intimation that there is a differ-ence between dreaming and awaking5.In fact, one of the capital questions that

Neo is asked to answer as part of his ini-tiation is: How would you know the dif-ference between the dream world andthe real world?.

Morpheus is not the first to haveasked this question, just as Neo is notthe first one who was challenged to pro-vide an answer. From this point of view,Ren Descartes First meditation is in-deed just like in The Matrix or rath-er, if we were to look at it chronological-ly, its The Matrix which is just like in theFirst Meditation The similarities withthe ideas that Lana and Andy Wachowskitranspose visually in their movie are quitestriking, and this proves that the creatorsof The Matrix are not mere entertainers,

but genuine and cultivated thinkers.In his First Meditation Descartes plays

simultaneously the role of Morpheusand that of Neo. What he does (and thisshould be regarded as a sort of spiritu-al exercise meant to lead to knowledge)is to systematically doubt everything hehad been told but ofen proved not

to be true, in order to avoid being delud-ed by prejudices or ready-made convic-tions. To put it differently or to put itvisually, like in The Matrix Descartesleads himself into a metaphysical des-ert: from this observation point, thingsappear into a wholly new perspective.Thus, he comes to doubt the very essenceof reality in its generally accepted oppo-

5 Idem, pp. 129-130.


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112 Claudia HULPOI

sition to dreams or illusions: there is noultimate indication that is certain enoughto make us distinguish clearly between

the state of being awake and that of be-ing asleep6, he states. Moreover, whiletrying to make out the truth and there-by becoming aware of his own state ofdeep ignorance, Descartes also comes todoubt the essence of the god that couldhave created such imperfect beings. Theones who are familiar with The Matrix (orwith Gnosticism for that mater) might

experience a dj vu here: according to theFrench philosopher, this almighty creatormeant to represent the sovereign sourceof truth is, in fact, nothing but a mali-cious spirit (un mauvais esprit), a greatdeceiver (un grand trompeur). And con-sequently, all his mastery lies in impos-ing an illusion which hides the true na-ture of reality whatever that true na-ture is7. What we have here is a portraitor an avatar of the Architect pictured inThe Matrix.

6 "Il ny a point dindices certains par olon puisse distinguer netement la veilledavec le sommeil" (Ren Descartes,M-ditations mtaphysiques (1964), Paris: Li-

brairie Larousse,1973, p. 31).7 "Je supposerais donc, non pas que Dieu,qui est trs bon et qui est la souverainesource de vrit, mais quun certain mau-vais gnie, non moins rus et trompeur quepuissant, a employ toute son industrie me tromper. [...] Cest pourquoi je prendraigarde soigneusement de ne recevoir en macroyance aucune fausset, et prpareraisi bien mon esprit toutes les ruses de ce

grand trompeur, que, pour puissant et rusquil soit, il ne pourra jamais rien imposer."(Idem, p. 34).

Descartes also acknowledges that,once awaken, the real trial is to stayawake: despite his efforts to remain per-

petually alert against what he suspects tobe a deception, he ofen abandons himselfto the chimera that this god treads aroundthe truth, making it so hard to seize. Atthis point, Descartes considerations seemto define precisely the brutified state ofthe beings that populate or are trapped inthe Matrix: Just like a slave who enjoysan imaginary freedom in his sleep andwho, when beginning to suspect that hisfreedom is nothing but a dream, refusesto wake up while deliberately holding onto these pleasant illusions so that he cankeep on being abused, I myself go backto my old beliefs, and I refuse to dozethem off for fear that the painful state ofawareness that could replace this peace

of mind, instead of bringing some lightin my understanding of the truth, wouldnot in fact elucidate the gloomy questionsthat have already been stirred8.

8 "Mais ce dessein est pnible et laborieux,et une certaine paresse mentrane insensi-

blement dans le train de ma vie ordinaire ;

et tout de mme quun esclave qui jouis-sait dans le sommeil dune libert imagi-naire, lorsquil commence souponnerque sa libert nest quun songe, craint dese rveiller, et conspire avec ces illusionsagrables pour en tre plus longuementabus, ainsi je retombe insensiblement demoi-mme dans mes anciennes opinions,et japprhende de me rveiller de cet as-soupissement, de peur que les veilles labo-

rieuses qui auraient succder la tran-quillit de ce repos, au lieu de mapporterquelque jour et quelque lumire dans la


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This takes us even further back, toPlatos Republic, and more specifically tohis cave parable, which is indeed about

apocalypse, but in its Greek, etymolog-ical meaning of revelation. Its thesame revelation of the truth Descartes solonged for in the 17th century, the one westill long for in the 21st. Some things nev-er change

If Descartes First Meditation is prob-ably less known, we are all more orless familiar with the myth of the cave.

Plato presents it in a short fragment (TheRepublic, 514-521) of an extended dialogue

between Socrates and some of his fellowAthenians. This section of their conver-sation about the perfect State, placed atthe beginning of Book VII, is about educa-tion as an art of conversion from dark-ness to light, or about finding out and

here comes the hard part living witha truth which might differ consistentlyfrom what we have been previously toldor taught. Socrates urges his interlocutor,Glaucon, to imagine a cave where peoplehave been chained ever since their birthand thus forced to perpetually watch ashadow parade on a wall. Terms like pic-ture, screen, show make Socrates

description particularly visual and pe-culiarly telecinematic: Picture menin an underground cave-dwelling, witha long entrance reaching up towards thelight along the whole width of the cave;in this they lie from their childhood, their

connaissance de la vrit, ne fussent pas

suffisantes pour claircir les tnbres desdifficults qui viennent dtre agites"(Idem, pp. 34-35).

legs and necks in chains, so that they staywhere they are and look only in front ofthem, as the chain prevents their turning

heads round. Some way off and higherup, a fire is burning behind them, and be-tween the fire and the prisoners is a roadon higher ground. Imagine a wall builtalong this road, like the screen whichshow-men have in front of the audience,over which they show the puppets. (TheRepublic, 514-515)9.

The jailers convince their prisonersthat this world of make-believe is re-ality; it is indeed the only reality theyhave ever known, the only reality theyvegrown accustomed to, since theyve neverhad any other term of comparison. Theydont even trouble to look for one, beingunaware of the illusion they live in andalso of the fact that they are prisoners of

that cave. As Charles L. Griswold putsit, They are ignorant of their ignorance.They are so trapped in the realm of arti-ficiality and manipulation that they insistat all costs on the truth of their world.Presumably the controllers or image mak-ers who run the image-show would behighly motivated to assist them in that

defense10

. Of the light, they only know

9 The English version is an extract from TheRepublic of Plato, translated by A.D. Lind-say with an Introduction by Alexander Ne-hamas and Notes by Renford Bambrough,London: David Campbell Publishers, 1992,p. 197.

10 Charles L. Griswold Jr., Happiness and

Cyphers Choice: Is Ignorance Bliss? in TheMatrix and Philosophy. Welcome to the Desertof the Real, ed. cit., p. 128.


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114 Claudia HULPOI

the dim reflection on the walls of theircave; and it isnt even the original solarlight, but that of a man-made fire.

However, one day one of these pris-oners might begin to ask himself if thatreality is the only or the real one.Just like Neo, he might come to suspectthat there is something wrong with theworld. Questions are the beginning ofall answers: as the feminine character inthe movie, Trinity, says, It is the ques-tion that drives us, Neo. It is the ques-

tion that brought you here. You knowthe question, just as I did. The answer isout there. Socrates, a master of maieu-tics, seems nevertheless to conceive of theprisoners awakening more like a swifrevelation than a gradual enlighteningprocess: Let us suppose one of them re-leased, and forced suddenly to stand up

and turn his head and walk and look to-wards the light. Let us suppose also thatthese actions gave him pain, and that hewas too dazed to see the objects whoseshadows he had been watching before.What do you think he would say if hewere told by someone that before hehad been seeing mere foolish phantoms,while now he was nearer to being, and

was turned to what in a higher degree is,and was looking more directly at it? (TheRepublic, 515-516)11.

Just like the prisoners from thePlatonic myth, the ones who are wired tothe Matrix believe in the reality of theirfoolish phantoms without even sus-pecting that there might be another reali-

11 The Republic of Plato, ed. cit., p. 198.

ty out there. And, just like in the Platonicmyth, one of these ignorant creatures es-capes from this world of simulacra and

then goes back to his cave fellows toshare his discovery, while offering toshow them the way out. Surprisingly,though, they violently refuse to believethe enlightened one, they even perceivehim as a menace to the apparent comfortof their existence. As we can see, both TheMatrix and the Platonic myth present uswith an allegory of extinction throughsheer self-sufficiency, or of the salvationthat active knowledge can bring about. Itis, however, a salvation strongly opposedto by the very ones who are doomed todecay, to the point that the savior him-self can become the victim of the victimsof ignorance.

For the inhabitants of the Matrix, the

truth is even harder to accept: Slavojizek12 notices that, unlike the Platoniccave dwellers, who were promised anupper world bathed in the light of thesun, what the Matrix prisoners are givenin exchange for their knowledge is a meredesert of the real in an undergroundshelter, and not the guarantee that they

would ever see the light as theyfi

nal-ly do. And even if they didnt, I wouldstill agree with William Irwing: The onlything worse than a prison for your mindwould be a prison for your mind youdidnt know you were in, a prison from

12 Slavoj izek, The Matrix: Or, the Two

Sides of Perversion, in The Matrix and Phi-losophy. Welcome to the Desert of the Real, ed.cit., p. 124.


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which, therefore, you would have no urgeto escape13. The distance between know-ing the path and walking the path is,

according to Morpheus prescription, longand tough. Socrates said the same aboutthe philosophy he practiced: for all greatthings are perilous, and it is true, as theproverb says, that beautiful things arehard14. Thats most probably why com-mon people like us would rather watchmovies and the news, or read books andnewspapers.

But we might actually wake up one dayand dare to live the dream if we dreamthat we are awake long enough. Not toolong, though and Baudrillard makes agood point here. His pun the telefissionof reality (latlfission du reel)15 refersto what he considers to be a contempo-rary catastrophe caused by the media re-

versed nuclear process: the overfl

ow ofinformation and images which cools orneutralizes the meaning and energy ofevents16. The viewers are thus constant-ly exposed to, and somehow contaminat-ed by simulacra and simulation that ac-tually shater all the energy of the real, not

by a spectacular nuclear explosion, but bya secret and steady implosion17. Were

13 William Irving, Computers, Caves, andOracles: Neo and Socrates, in The Matrixand Philosophy. Welcome to the Desert of the

Real, ed. cit., p. 8.14 The Republic of Plato, ed. cit., p. 180.15 Jean Baudrillard, op. cit., p. 81.16 "La TV elle aussi est un processus nuclaire

(...): elle refroidit et neutralise le sens et

lnergie des vnements. (Idem, p. 82).17 "simulacres et simulation o sengouffreeffectivement toute lnergie du rel, non

again in the paradox here or, it is rath-er confusing: technology, which has al-ways been defined as a functional so-

phistication of the human organism18

,seems to perform exactly the opposite,as it renders human senses opaque and

blunt. The technology of visual media, forinstance photography, cinema projec-tions, TV sets, computers, I-phones andall the handy gadgets that have invadedthe market along with our lives, are sup-posed to operate towards the enhance-ment of the human faculty of seeing andknowing. But do they actually serve theseaims? Baudrillard doesnt quite think so,on the contrary. They blind, for they at-rophy our sense of the real or make us in-sensitive to what they so obviously, ex-ceedingly, incessantly show. Were fullyupdated, and yet losing touch, and di-

rection. Were such an easy prey.It could be that our civilization has

reached a point of technical develop-ment and material achievements that re-lates it to the legendary, once thriving is-land of Atlantis, whose floody misfor-tunes are reported by the same Plato inhis dialogue Critias. I seriously doubt that

we are to face a similar apocalyptic end. Ionly wonder: could it be that Atlantis ac-tually sank in the Platonic cave?

plus dans une explosion nuclaire specta-culaire, mais dans une implosion secrte etcontinue." (Idem, p. 84).

18 Dans la perspective classique (mme cy-berntique), la technologie est un prolon-

gement du corps. Elle est la sophisticationfonctionnelle dun organisme humain.(Idem, p. 163).


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116 Claudia HULPOI

Bibliography

Baudrillard Jean, Simulacres et simulation, Paris: ditions Galile, 1981.Descartes Ren, Premire mditation, inMditations mtaphysiques, notes by Marc Soriano, Paris:

Librairie Larousse, 1973.Irwing William (ed.), The Matrix and Philosophy. Welcome to the Desert of the Real, PerfectBounde-books, Harper Collins & Carus Publishing, 2002.

Platon, Republica, Books VI-X, notes and translation by Andrei Cornea, Bucureti: Teora-Universitas, 1988.

Platon, Critias, in Opere VII, edited by Petru Creia, introduction, notes and translations byAndrei Cornea and Ctlin Partenie, Bucureti: Editura tiinific, 1993.

Filmography

Wachowski

Andy&Lana, The Matrix, Script: Andy&Lana Wachowski, With: Keanu Reeves,Laurence Fishburne, Produced by: Bruce Berman, 1999.Wachowski Andy&Lana, The Matrix Reloaded, Script: Andy&Lana Wachowski, With: Keanu

Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Produced by: Bruce Berman, 2003.Wachowski Andy&Lana, The Matrix Revolutions, Script: Andy&Lana Wachowski, With: Keanu

Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Produced by: Bruce Berman, 2003.Oreck Josh, Return to Source: Philosophy & The Matrix (2004).

The Matrix through Plato’s and Descartes’ Looking Glass

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