Many of the "Matrix" ideas can be seen as just a slightly different angle on ideas presented elsewhere in this blog - especially here , where I summarize "progress to date". Art is a useful species of simulation. It allows us to imagine different worlds using no more hardware than our senses and our brains. The result can go beyond what we usually think of as "metaphor" - even extending into the realms of myth and religion. The Matrix movie series provides a challenging dramatization of metaphors that are so commonplace that they have become tropes for empty speculation and dead-end philosophy. The movie updates some old ideas in dramatic new ways: Many religions, including the "Abrahamic" and Hindu traditions, regard reality as some kind of dream, with the "real", important reality being the realm of the gods. The "soul" is separable from the body and travels on after death into the more important realms of the gods. In such ...

good piece. Sooooooooooo, do we build our own matrix, or is built by others and the way they interact with us? Is this a simulation or is it and illusion? ...and how do we when our matrix comes in touch with reality. Is the matrix our physical body or only partly (your reference to surgery while awake) How does the illusion relate to our spirituality? Stuff for another blog.  1. We build our own matrix with the constant help of others - mostly indirect. Through language and the man-made environment, for example. A city may be regarded as a matrix. It exists through wide agreement on what it is, why it exists, the rules it enforces (walls, laws, roads). The city is called into existence because we all agree on what it means . To see this, imagine what a city is to, say, an e-coli bacterium or a crow. 2. It's a simulation that employs illusions sometimes. For example, we have the illusion that our eyes look out on the world constantly and smoothly. The brain allows us to miss bl...

The Matrix is one of the most successful, popular and lucrative movie franchises of all time.  I will assume the reader has watched at least some of the shows in this series, perhaps more than once. Quite apart from its entertainment value, the Matrix has provided a new "meme" for bar room philosophy: the idea that reality itself is a kind of "matrix" - that we are all living in a simulation. This has struck me as a rather stupid idea for a long time and I have occasionally bent my "back of the napkin" analysis tools to showing how ridiculous it is. But it's true . We are living in a simulation. Realizing this can be a big leap forward in our quest to understand ourselves and the universe we inhabit. How can this be true? Well, quite simply. Everything we experience is presented to our minds due to an amazingly complex set of sensations and brain processes. We never experience reality directly. We are born, live and die inside the simulated universe of...