Yesterday's 16th May episode of TSS was an interesting show. The show was more about 'The Matrix' than anything else, though
I really liked the two mil-spec notebooks that actually survived water pour from a jug and soil on the back and the front of the notebook.
Then there was this Mr. Lloyd who's purportedly a computer scientist and a programmer and also a "big" thinker, who happens to be doing
much thinking about the world of The Matrix and how its possibility lends to the idea that we are afterall "batteries" generating a big bad
machine that had taken over humans for aeons; without we humans realizing it. I listened intently, with every sentence he spoke, I weighed it
and digested, and he at one point actually convinced me that we are afterall feeling, tasting and experiencing things that are not real at all,
signals that were generated by this super intelligent machine that could deceivingly subvert our minds into believing that we are real.
When the commercials came on, I sat quiet, and thought deeply. I was taking the idea of the Matrix and tried to imagine myself in that realm.
I was trying my best to find fault points and facts that could bring the idea of the Matrix to a fatal flaw, but i wasn't able to.
The machine that had supposedly taken over humans is a very plausible idea. Our lives 'could' be defined by billions of tiny programs that
run incessantly and concurrently. You might say that we are real because we are biologically conceived in our mothers' womb, but what if that
event was also part of the grand design of the program that was meant to deceive us into thinking that we are 'humans'? It's like all of us are
in deep hypnotism that we could not get out of. It's like living in two parallel dimensions that co-exist and are interdependent. Everything
and i mean everything no matter how trivial or big, might be just part of the program that was designed to generate electricity signals that
are very readily accepted by our brains as reality. Our actual bodies might be sleeping in the pods filled with god-knows-what fluids that
insulate us, while our brains are alive and kicking with intricate stories to tell.
One point actually supported this crap. I took Psychology while I was at TARC. And I remember learning something about how
hypnotism could do wonders to our brains. In many studies, including some "real life" criminal investigations, subjects or victims were
hypnotised to extract subtle or hidden information in the brain that might serve great purposes. Many psychologists have reported
that while many forgotten details were successfully extracted, "raw and new details or experiences" could be "created", facts which
are simply manufactured and didn't actually happen to individuals. One example is this. You might remember that while you were at age 6,
you climbed a tree and fell to the ground but didn't actually hurt yourself. When hypnotised, the hypnotist might actually provide raw
information that could be inserted crudely into your actual life experiences library in the brain without you realizing it and then you would accept that as your real life event. In other words, the hypnotist might tell you, while you are hypnotised, that you had actually broke your leg and were hurt badly. The hypnotist might even go to great lengths in describing the pain and the excruciating process of recovery, to the point that you might actually feel pain in your leg when your leg is actually healthy and fine.
The point here is that even a simple procedure such as hypnotism could subvert the mind into believing something which are
fictitious and wrong. Who knows, this great program that we're all part of are doing just that, supplying information to our
brains, detailing every aspect of our lives, from the time of conception to our deaths. It's just wonderful how this idea of the Matrix
fits into everything that I thought I knew and understood. But it 'could' be otherwise.
Another point to support the behaviours of the brain is that, our brains sometimes conjure up images or events that had not happen
but serve as patches to close gaps of memories. For example, Boy A remembers clearly that he loves red socks when he was little, but
he doesn't quite remember how often he washes them. When Boy A tries hard to recollect faded memories, his brain found nothing, it was
permanently forgotten or maybe Boy A has some impairment that impeded him from recollecting full memory of his childhood. So, the brain
kicks in its technique to supply plausible devices to quench the curiosity of the boy. The brain constructs a memory which is often
fictitious, telling the boy that he washes the red socks twice in a week. But later, the mother of that boy might confirm that he
washes the socks only once a year. See how that works? This is scientifically proven and is documented in most general psychology books.
Where I got all these facts? I didn't make them up, I swear, it's all in the book 'Psychology, Themes & Variations' by Weiten which was
published by Brookes Cole Publishing.
All these facts further reaffirmed by beliefs that we might in fact be trapped in this world that we were made to believe that we're
real and alive and lonely. The analogy to the Matrix is the God, Devil, and Human analogy. God, as we all know is the all supreme and
all knowing being who governs everything that's happening to all of us. You can think of God as the machine that took over real
humans which live in fluid pods.
It's fascinating how a film and a ground breaking idea could make us think about our position as humans and what exist at the outer limits
of our so called existence. It's a fine story that'll live on for few decades before it fades, or maybe it won't.
However, I didn't just stop there and be contented with that idea of existence. I continued questioning and that I did, and I came
to a question that I think the Matrix couldn't answer. Here it is: If super intelligent machines took over humans and let humans live in
a projected realm that's not real, then why did the machines made us technologically advanced? In simpler terms, why did the
machines made us understand physics and science to the point where we could create sophisticated machines? Don't the machines who rule
us fear that we could ultimately use our own created machines to rebel them or make war with them? Don't the machines fear about
their survivality? Aren't they afraid that humans would use their scientific knowledge to bring forward a revolution to completely wipe out the
"intelligent machines"? If I was the 'machine' I would create a world where no one knows science, where no one knows mathematics or
physics or biology or chemistry. With that, I can ensure the long survivality of the machines.
And then I thought, that was how the Matrix movie came about, certain number of selected people were able to use their
knowledge of science to "escape" from the pods and live like humans again, in a place called the Zion. So that was basically how
the seed of that movie came about, people escaping the machine's grand design and are forever cursed to run away from the machine's
army of destruction. That is how it is, I believe.
So much about the Matrix and I just can't stop thinking about it. I might be obsessed with it, but i am not crazy. I was just
contemplating the idea, that's all.
To commemorate the release of Matrix:Reloaded, I'd like to post here a nice little app that paints your desktop with falling green
characters just like the one in the movie. It's open source and you can find it at SourceForge.net.
Download > ZMatrix
