“We prefer the exile of the virtual, of which television is the universal mirror, to the catastrophe of the real.”
Television simulates an alternate reality it stimulates our senses providing information from realities outside our own. We are intoxicated by it and instinctively absorb its information as truth, much as Native Americans believed their peyote induced hallucinations to be spiritual visions of prophecy. Just as Marx described religion as the opium of the people , television has become a narcotic for the digital age.
But why should removing oneself from reality be such an important part of the human condition? Perhaps one significance lies in the fact that while conscious we are experiencing whatever we perceive to be reality and in our unconscious state, the dreams that we experience allow us to make sense of our waking experiences. Freud himself explored the intricacies of analysing dreams to provide insights into the individual. This practice of maintaining or enhancing reality perception through the undermining of the reality is echoed by shaman around the world who enter a trance in order to gain a greater understanding of their realities.
Fantasy is necessary as it reinforces our belief in ‘the real’. This is a premise that Baudrillard sees as a threat to reality. He cites the example of Disneyland as a fantasy that dupes the observer into a distorted view of reality:
“Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation.”
In accepting Disneyland as fantasy, we subconsciously affirm our faith in reality. This issue is confronted by Morpheus in The Matrix. He says to Neo:
“You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he’s expecting to wake up. Ironically this is not far from the truth.”
When we visit Disneyland, we allow ourselves, and our perceptions of the outside reality, to be placed in limbo. This is because we know that at some point in the future we will leave wonderland and take up our lives in reality once more.
This is a concept explored in The Matrix that refers to Baudrillard. In the film, Neo must leave behind the false world of The Matrix in order to perceive the truth. He must ‘wake up’ to the fact that what he saw as the real world is, as Baudrillard suggests, a false hyperreality that generates chimaeras to maintain its own status. Interestingly, within the film, The Matrix literally uses dreams in two different ways in order to preserve itself. I take as my example the scene where Neo is interrogated by The Agents. In this part of the film he is exposed to very disturbing experiences. First his mouth is sealed making him unable to scream, followed by the insertion of a semi-organic ‘bug’ that burrows into his navel. Immediately following this the scene cuts to Ne
waking up in his apartment screaming, presuming it was all a nightmare. In this context, The Matrix has used the concept of the dream as a Baudrillardian alibi that enhances the plausibility of ‘the real’. In addition, the ‘non real’ nature of the dream has been exploited in order to implant in Neo a very real tracking bug that The Agents hope will lead them to Morpheus, who they perceive to be the prime threat to The Matrix.
The importance of dreams to humanity is well documented. Aside from the Biblical tale of Joseph interpreting the dreams of the Pharaoh and the Australian Aboriginal legends of the dreamtime, the ancient Greeks themselves had a god of dreams interestingly named Morpheus. It is therefore important to note that there is some
981645948UF
aspect of the dream world that is of specific importance to humans. I believe there is a significant link between the attachment we have to television and the historical importance of dreams in that both share active and passive elements. So much so in
fact that it is impossible to determine either dreams or TV as active or passive distractions. In everyday life we make active choices. As Berger says, even the images that we see every day are perceived actively:
“We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice”
Television and dreams take us away from a world where constant choices are made. We can experience, for better or worse, a vicarious reality that is fed to us almost intravenously. It is in this aspect that both Baudrillard and Neo see a danger. In the world of the media and dreams, overt choice is removed from reality and as a result leads to an undermining of the real.
In The Matrix, Morpheus asks Neo if he believes in Fate. Neo says that he does not and when asked why replies:
“Because I don’t like the idea that I’m not in control of my life”
In much the same way that dreams offer access to a passive reality, the concept of Fate provides a reality that has no bearing on our individual choices. While we are free to make choices, the outcome is pre-determined. Neo does not believe in Fate just as he believes there is something wrong with The Matrix world. Whereas Leibniz saw a knowable, monad-based world as harmonious, Neo, a Baudrillard disciple, sees the knowable as restrictive. It is on this premise that Neo’s suspicion of The Matrix is based. He does not believe in Fate, yet senses that because of the digital nature of The Matrix x will equal y. Indeed, Baudrillard himself could have been talking about the uncomfortable oppression of The Matrix when he wrote:
“It is by the simulation of a conventional, restricted perspective field, where the premises and consequences of any act or event are calculable, that a political reality can be maintained.”
It is in undermining the calculable, that Neo becomes in control of The Matrix and from there can begin to attack its political reality. This is the ability that Morpheus sees in Neo. In an attempt to instruct his pupil to “free his mind” Morpheus refers to The Agents as gatekeepers:
“They are guarding all the doors. They are holding all the keys, which means sooner or later, someone is going to have to fight them.”
He goes on to point out that The Agents’ strength and speed,
“are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be.”
Morpheus points Neo down the path towards defeating The Matrix by freeing his mind from all the realities formerly imposed upon it. He believes Neo must centre on the fluid, organic nature of his mind that, if focussed will overcome the world of proscribed rules on which The Matrix is based. However, as Morpheus says, this is a state that must be achieved alone:
“I can only show you the door. You have to walk through it.”
It is in an attempt to explore these doors that Aldous Huxley wrote The Doors of Perception. In a spirit of scientific discovery, Huxley offered himself as a guinea pig. To take four-tenths of a gramme of mescaline and have his intoxicated thoughts and perceptions recorded on tape and documented by an observer. The Doors of Perception consists of Huxley’s own insights into the hallucinogenic condition in relation to reality.
The significance in Huxley’s writing lies in how the mind of the individual can be altered under the influence of drugs and how the perceptions of reality experienced while intoxicated undermine the individual’s reality. One of Huxley’s first realisations is that the manner in which we perceive reality from day to day has, along with our physiology, been through a process of Darwinian natural selection. The perceptions of reality that allow us best to survive in our surroundings are those that exist in our minds today. He comments on the mind as a ‘reducing valve’, that exterior
stimulation is reduced by the mind and nervous system so that:
“What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet.”
Through hallucinogenic drugs Huxley believes that one can perceive reality purely, as it actually exists. The mind under mescaline:
“does its perceiving in terms of intensity of existence”
rather than,
“Where? ? How far? ? How situated in relation to what?”
Mescaline negates the codes with which we construct our realities. It enables us to perceive things as they are, standing alone. It allows us to appreciate what Meister Eckhart meant by Istigkeit or Is-ness. The idea of existence purely on its own terms, without the signs that have been attached to reality by ages of human experience. In other words, to see things as they are.
Unfortunately, the truth remains that although hallucinogenics may offer an untainted perception of reality, that reality is only something that can be experienced, never communicated. The addict who spends hours sitting staring at his hand is to be pitied no matter how intense his experience. Only realities that are communicable are appreciable, and it is there the problem lies. In order to make sense of our realities it is necessary to undermine them, to test their limits. This is the message communicated by The Matrix. Do not take the world for granted, ask questions of it and seek the truth but at the same time remember the Oracle’s motto, Temet Nosce: Know Thyself.
In providing a concept of a world in which reality is constructed entirely from computer code, The Matrix has enabled me to examine how these codes affect our own realities. In a positive sense they have contributed hugely to the development of mankind. The coded manner in which we construct our realities not only enables us to be comfortable with our existence and organise experience into a manageable format, but also to communicate our perceptions with others. It is during this stage of communication that we need to be aware that our realities are fragile and communication itself may alter the true nature of the reality presented. Ultimately in order to appreciate reality fully we must step outside our everyday world and appreciate that reality is negotiable.
In writing this dissertation I was hoping to discover whether reality could be accurately presented in code form. In terms of technology the possibilities are limitless, computing power is ever increasing and the concept of virtual reality can only increase in its accurate portrayal of the world. However when experiencing VR there is always the knowledge that it will be turned off and reality will return. This has the effect of making reality more secure as the production of a counterfeit has made it genuine. Therefore in relying on a coded representati
n of reality our perceptions of the real are dulled. We become less inclined to question reality. As Baudrillard says:
“Everything which is turned into information becomes the object of endless speculation, the site of total uncertainty.”
The duplication of the real creates its own questions, deflecting us from questioning reality.
Ultimately, I believe that reality is infinitely elusive and unobtainable. As our perceptions change, so do our identities. In The Matrix, Thomas Anderson becomes Neo and finally The One as his perceptions of The Matrix reality become more elaborate. Reality can be experienced and observed in different ways but never in one true manner. At the end of The Matrix Neo finds the correct way to see The Matrix and becomes The One. This, however, is not reality. All he does is perceive an alternate version of reality and separate that from his own reality. As Morpheus promises all along this is achieved through freeing the mind, being open to experience and not necessarily believing the senses. While my opening quotation remains true, the importance of Housman’s sentiment must be recognised:
“Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.”
Bibliography
Primary Texts:
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulations. London: Semiotext(e), 1983.
Baudrillard, Jean. The Gulf War did not take place. Edited and translated by Paul Patton. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: BBC / Penguin Books, 1972.
Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception. London: Flamingo, 1994.
Wachowski Brothers. The Matrix. Warner Bros, 1999.
Secondary Texts:
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. London: Vintage, 1993.
Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. London: Fontana Press, 1992.
Blake, William. ‘A Memorable Fancy’, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790-3.
Forster, E.M. ‘The Machine Stops’. Twentieth Century Short Stories Ed. D.R. Barnes & R.F. Egford. London: Harrap, 1959.
Gombrich, E.H. Art, Perception and Reality. London: John Hopkins University Press, 1972.
Genesis, Authorised King James Version. Edinburgh: Canongate, 1998.
Housman, A.E. A Shropshire Lad. London: Ashford Press Publishing, 1988.
Jervis, John. Exploring The Modern. Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1998.
Leibniz, G.W. The Monadology. 1714
Marx, Karl. Intro. A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843?4) Cit. Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Fourth Edition. London: Oxford University Press, 1983. 981645948UF
McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium is the Message: An Inventory of Effects. Watford: Taylor Garnett Evans, 1967.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost, Books I and II. Ed. F.T. Prince. London: Oxford University Press, 1995.
McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium is the Massage. London: Penguin Books, 1967.
Progoff, Ira. Jung, Synchronicity and Human Destiny. New York: Julian Press, 1973.
Raban, J. Soft City. London: Collins Harvill, 1988.
Rivkin, J and Ryan, M. Eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1998.
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. London: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Segal, Robert, A. Jung on Mythology. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Simmel, Georg. ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’, On Individuality and Social Forms, 1903.
Encarta Multimedia Encyclopaedia. CD-ROM format, Microsoft Corporation, 1995.
Websites.
www.thereisnospoon.com
A centre for movie clips, chat rooms, questions and fans’ message board.
www.geocities.com/larkspur10/neo/home.html
An analysis of the film focusing on themes, religious references, motifs and analysis of characters’ names. Provides the ability to download the film transcript for which I am grateful.
www.intothematrix.com
Again, a focus on themes within the film, appears to have plagiarised the above link but interesting thoughts on the use of colour within the film.
www.knowthematrix.com
Centre for fan queries about the film.
www.whatisthematrix.com
Official Warner Bros. site concerning all aspects of the film. Regularly updated giving current information and news on the upcoming sequels.