The Matrix
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 our minds. Fortunately, the simulation is accurate enough so that we stand a good chance of survival while never knowing exactly what the world looks like.
All this is easy to see. But there's more.
Our minds don't construct the matrix independently. In fact, the matrix is constructed with a lot of help from the people around us and, of course, extensive personal experience with the actual universe. Contrary to what the "idealist" says, reality needs to be taken seriously, even if we have no direct knowledge of it. Without the "real world", the matrix world of the mind does not exist.
So it is, that we live in a shared matrix in an ultimately unknowable "real world". Many aspects of this matrix are critically important to us (inside the matrix) even though they do not correspond to anything in the "real world". Most prominent of these are God, language, money and the overcoat of human values that we paint over everything inside the matrix.
Although we are trapped inside the matrix, we sometimes get a glimpse of "reality" that is a shocking reminder of how we wrap ourselves comfortably in the illusions of the matrix.
On several occasions, I have been awake during medical procedures that unmistakably show the shocking physical reality of what I think of as "me". I have Xrays and Cat scans on file of my spine and knee. This week I underwent an ablation surgery on my heart, which reminded me that this little lump of muscle is real - always behind the scenes waiting to end me at any time.
I read quite a bit about my "microbiome", the community in my gut that makes up the majority of cells in my body and mysteriously influences my health in a myriad of unknown ways.
Thinking of the world we live in as a "matrix" simulation opens the door to a new way of thinking of ourselves and our place in the universe. We all live in our own personal matrix and that matrix is shared with different sets of people. That's the nature of being human. Something that is absolutely real in one person's matrix can be an illusion or completely absent in another. We always need to be aware of the fact that none of us has the option of living outside the matrix. But we do have the option to appreciate and respect the world that others live in, along with perhaps the humility to always be aware that our own matrix is not the real world. It cannot be.
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 our minds. Fortunately, the simulation is accurate enough so that we stand a good chance of survival while never knowing exactly what the world looks like.
All this is easy to see. But there's more.
Our minds don't construct the matrix independently. In fact, the matrix is constructed with a lot of help from the people around us and, of course, extensive personal experience with the actual universe. Contrary to what the "idealist" says, reality needs to be taken seriously, even if we have no direct knowledge of it. Without the "real world", the matrix world of the mind does not exist.
So it is, that we live in a shared matrix in an ultimately unknowable "real world". Many aspects of this matrix are critically important to us (inside the matrix) even though they do not correspond to anything in the "real world". Most prominent of these are God, language, money and the overcoat of human values that we paint over everything inside the matrix.
Although we are trapped inside the matrix, we sometimes get a glimpse of "reality" that is a shocking reminder of how we wrap ourselves comfortably in the illusions of the matrix.
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| The Author's Brain While Writing This |
I read quite a bit about my "microbiome", the community in my gut that makes up the majority of cells in my body and mysteriously influences my health in a myriad of unknown ways.
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| Actual Photo of My MicroBiome |
Thinking of the world we live in as a "matrix" simulation opens the door to a new way of thinking of ourselves and our place in the universe. We all live in our own personal matrix and that matrix is shared with different sets of people. That's the nature of being human. Something that is absolutely real in one person's matrix can be an illusion or completely absent in another. We always need to be aware of the fact that none of us has the option of living outside the matrix. But we do have the option to appreciate and respect the world that others live in, along with perhaps the humility to always be aware that our own matrix is not the real world. It cannot be.
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.
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