Simulacra and Simulations, by Jean Baudrillard, is the book in which Neo hid his diskette. I started reading it and was amazed by the relevance of the concept of the 'simulacrum' to The Matrix.
A simulacrum -the copy without an original- is what the virtual world of the Matrix is symbolizing. Baudrillard states that most simulations today have been converted into a simulacrum, which no longer represents a real entity, but instead forms and defines a reality of its own, a 'hyperreality'. What we see in it is no longer an image, but something more real than its original, something that doesn't bear any relevance anymore to its real counterpart, which it once simulated.
These are seen all through society nowadays, and it seems to me that the makers of the Matrix wanted to point out that we should question and look behind the reality that 'the system' imposes on us.
When Neo leaves the Matrix and is confronted with reality, he says at one time: "Get away from me. I don't believe in you." He sees the virtual reality of the Matrix as the only acceptable reality, while in fact, it is a simulacrum, to hide that nothing is there.
Interesting quotes I have come across so far:
[An image changes to a simulacrum in the following phases:]
1. It is the reflection of a profound reality;
2. It masks and denatures a profound reality;
3. It masks the absence of a profound reality;
4. It has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure
simulacrum.
The motto of the first chapter:
The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is truth that hides the fact that there is none.
The simulacrum is true. (Ecclesiastes)
Another quote:
If it is practically impossible to isolate the process of simulation, through the force of inertia of the real that surrounds us, the opposite is also true (and this reversibility itself is part of the apparatus of simulation and the impotence of power): namely, it is now impossible to isolate the process of the real, or to prove the real.
Morpheus' words "the desert of the real" are borrowed from page 1 of this book, kept in similar context.
Tom's Comments:
The "dinner" scenes are also important with regard to simulacra. On the Nebuchadnezzar in the real world, the crew eats bad tasting food and complains about it.
Tank: Here you go, buddy. Breakfast of champions.
Mouse: If you close your eyes it almost feels like you're eating runny eggs.
When Cypher has dinner with the Agent in the Matrix, he has delicious wine and steak. Then Cypher says that even though he knows the meal in the Matrix isn't real, he still loves it.
Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.
So here the movie is showing us the triumph of the simulacra, the victory of the fake over the real. Cypher's greatest wish is to return to the Matrix and forget the real world even existed.
Cypher: I don't want to remember nothing. Nothing. You understand? And I want to be rich. You know, someone important, like an actor.
Another book worth reading on this topic (and more accessible than Baudrillard, I think) is Travels in Hyperreality, by Umberto Eco.