Lilly and Lana Wachowski’s movie The Matrix has attracted a lot of attention from philosophy scholars ever since its initial release in 1999. Through the subtleties of cinematic language and subtext in screenwriting, the movie discusses major philosophical themes, such as skepticism and the mind-body problem. This paper aims to analyze how those topics are tackled in the movie Matrix and explain how the movie raises questions similar to those in Plato’s and Descartes’ philosophy. Its thesis is that The Matrix can be used as an illustration of the philosophical problem of body and mind, as well as Plato’s Cave allegory.
From a philosophical point of view, The Matrix is a somewhat modern interpretation of Plato’s allegory of The Cave. Said allegory questions the possibility of any investigation to be conducted by human beings in the first place, thus contributing to the tradition of skepticism. Plato argues that people in the cave are prisoners of their own limited knowledge, which does not let them realize that there is a world beyond the cave in the first place (Bishop 25).
Their understanding of freedom cannot be trusted since people who have spent their entire life in the cave believe that it is the beginning and the end of all things. The analogy is clearly depicted in the movie, where the world population exists in a computer simulation without knowing it through their entire lives. The movie brings Plato’s Cave allegory and the doubt principle of skepticism together by illustrating the idea that nobody can ever know what their reality truly is.
Here, Neo is in essence similar to Plato’s chained prisoner, with the main difference being entombed in the cables instead. One of the film’s characters, Morpheus, who is also informed of the true state of things, insists that “most of these people are not ready to be unplugged” (Wachowski & Wachowski 00:56:43-00:59:30). Thus, the movie explores the idea of the transformative yet world-shattering potential of freedom and truth that might be too much for many people to realize. If the prisoners of a Cave are not familiar with any other world, they cannot be aware of their own imprisonment. The movie asks whether it is, therefore, right and necessary to wake up and exit the Cave, symbolically presenting a choice between a red pill and a blue pill.
The ideas of skepticism within the movie are even clearer when analyzed from the theoretical perspective of René Descartes. In philosophy, skeptics argue that the world we believe in might not exist at all, as subjectivity affects one’s perception to the point of inherent unreliability. Descartes questions all of his thought patterns and experiences, allowing for the potential existence of a malicious demon that controls and shapes his perception independently from reality.
Similarly, all the sensations and experiences most “Matrix” characters get to acquire are artificially created by someone else and do not reflect that reality around them (Abedi et al. 109). To solidify the parallels, both sources explore the idea of dreaming and the ways it might toy with one’s consciousness and believes about oneself. Descartes utilizes the fake sensations from the dreams to further his argument of unreliable senses, while Wachowski’s Neo struggles to tell the difference between dreams and reality.
The mind-body problem in philosophy is a complicated dualism of the relationship between a person’s physical body and their mind. It stems from Decartes’ teaching and uncertainty of the information conveyed by human senses, mentioned in the previous paragraph. Descartes argued that the mind and the body are so different that their interaction is impossible in any factual manner. He associated the mind with consciousness and lack of physical manifestation, not connecting it with the physical brain. Thus, within the problem, the bodies are certainly in space, while the minds are not, and the dualism manifests in these two essential parts of a human essentially existing at separate planes. In The Matrix, this occurs almost literally, when Neo begins his psychedelic journey in and out of the computer simulation he has spent his entire life in.
So far, it has not been difficult to articulate why The Matrix is an illustrative example of the thesis ideas reflected in a film. Yet certain counterarguments might be possible and should be addressed to achieve a cohesive narrative. For starters, The Matrix is well-known for containing exploration of multiple philosophical contexts and ideas at once. It is, after all, a work of fiction and not an academic text, and therefore one cannot count on sufficient precision or accuracy when exploring the movie’s educational potential.
In addition to Decartes and Plato, Wachowski incorporate into their film a significant amount of religious subtext. Neo’s adventures and transformations throughout the movie contain allegories to baptism, as well as the Messiah arc that has become almost traditional for Western fiction (Abedi et al. 121). Therefore, an argument might be held almost infinitely on whether the movie can be used as a functioning example of any of the philosophical concepts it explores. After all, as the artists were exercising their artistic freedom, they could have easily mishandled certain theoretical concepts for the purposes of engaging and symbolic storytelling.
Nonetheless, Plato’s Cave allegory and Decartes’ mind and body problem are easily identifiable in the film’s themes and symbolic language. The intentionality of the parallels can not be doubted, as the movie essentially builds its premise based on the aforementioned ideas. With the red pill symbolizing life-changing but shocking truth, and the blue pill standing for living in blissful ignorance, the movie openly challenges our ideas of reality. The academic quality of the execution of the philosophical concepts might be up for debate, as almost everything is or should be, when philosophical undertones of popular culture are concerned.
As some researchers point out, the use of philosophical themes can be “the source of the competitive advantage for the filmmakers” (Abedi et al. 121). The Matrix is, arguably, the most effective and detailed exploration of the thesis philosophical concepts to this day and deserves attention as such.
In conclusion, it is relevant to evaluate the ways in which we engage with media that explore fundamental philosophical concepts. Certainly, even the fiction of the highest quality can not act as a substitute for original works and relevant academic readings. Yet, it does not mean that these media works are not worthy of further philosophical exploration. The Matrix is a well-known cinematographic masterpiece that has attracted attention and analysis since its release. It is thematically rich and successfully builds its lore and symbolism around philosophical ideas of dualism and skepticism, engaging with the most obscure topics in a memorable manner. Therefore, pretending it fails in meaningfully convey the aforementioned ideas on-screen would, in a way, be the equivalent of choosing the blue pill.
Works Cited
Abedi, Abolfazl, et al. “Philosophical Reading of the Matrix on Skepticism.” Quarterly Scientific Journal of Audio-Visual Media, vol. 13, no. 30, 2019, 108-133. Web.
Bishop, Paul. “Plato and the Cave,” German Political Thought and the Discourse of Platonism, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2019, pp. 25-59.
Wachowski, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, directors. Matrix. Warner Brothers Studios, 1999.