Topic awaiting preservation: what IS the matrix?

Now folks, I don't wanna spoil anything, so if you haven't seen Matrix: reloaded, you might wanna click away until you've seen it.
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still there?
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warning: spoiler might be ahead
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ok, you'd been warned.
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remember how Neo gets out of the Matrix and they all have to leave the ship at the end of the movie?
No?
well, then maybe you should go and watch the movie first.
I mean it.
SPOILER:
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As Neo stops the Sentinels coming after them, one has to ask: Now, what the hell just happened? They're in the real world, how can he stop them like they were bullets in the matrix? As far as I know, humans do not shed an EMP field. Some of my friends tried to give explanations using radio signals and such, but I have another theory:

The humans actually live in a matrix within a matrix. How so?

1. Trinity had kissed Neo in part one and came back to live. Ok, one might argue that he IS the one, BUT...
2. Neo has revived Trinity as she was killed by the agent. Her body in the ship was dead, too (as we saw by the live monitor). Now, how can Neo bring a body back to live if that body itself isn't in some kind of a matrix.

not convinced? ok:
3. Neo stops sentinels by holding out his hand. They go down (so does he). If "reality" was just another matrix, this would be easy to explain. He hacked the program again.
4. Agent Smith has left the matrix. Has he? Or did he just move from one matrix into another?

ok, so one might have other explanations for these two. let's go on:
5. the purpose of the ONE is to reboot the system. ooookaaayy.... how do you do that if you are INSIDE the system?
6. the machines would have considered the possibility that a person might simply say: go f*** yourself! then what? they just CAN't leave any choice to the human. so what do they do? they create a matrix... and they they create another one in that matrix. as agent smith said in the MATRIX: the humans did not accept the program since it was too perfect. so how do you convince someone that he has LEFT the matrix? by creating a reality that is far darker then the one he came from.

just speculations? or is there any evidence?
7. the term "anomaly in the system" (or something similar) has been used a couple of times in the movie. think about it: the machines are feeding the remains of humans to the others. so why don't they just kill the anomalies and feed them to others? why this complicated system of agents & rebels to sustain a system?
8. If you leave anyone out of the system, you have to consider the possibility that this person may threaten the system from the outside. so why let anyone leave in the first place? it's enough to give them the illusion of leaving. the illusion of being free.

no? still disagreeing? ok:
9. the matrix has certain main themes: illusion of freedom (of choice), destiny & spirituality and so on. putting hope into this system of twisted realities means creating a flaw in the system. this is what an audience might expect. but in order to surprise an audience, you first give them what they expect and the twist it around.
10. finally, the whole matrix theme is based on "the futurologic congress" by Stanislaw Lem. If you read the book, you'll find exactly the same ideas and exactly the kind of ending / resolution that I have described here.

Well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe not. The last part will show. I would find a Matrix within a Matrix thing much more interesting as it would really draw a depressing and cruel picture of human future.

Sniggy the Cat

or 11. There is no matrix and neo just slipped and hit his head in the shower. It's all a dream al la J.R. on Dallas.

Wouldn't that just suck.

J. Stuart J.




[This message has been edited by jstuartj (edited 06-01-2003).]

Or... would it be funny if this was a kids video game?

"3. Neo stops sentinels by holding out his hand. They go down (so does he). If "reality" was just another matrix, this would be easy to explain. He hacked the program again."

Before hearing this theory from a friend a few days ago, at first, my theory was something like this.. Agent Smith managed to "download" himself so to speak into another persons mind in the beginning of the movie, and also towards the beginning, Smith tells Neo that they have a kind of connection. At the end, when Neo blasts the machines, Neo says "I can feel them" (the machines coming) My feeling is that when this happened, Neo felt this connection himself, and through the Agent Smith connection into the matrix, he was able to send a pulse of energy or something through the matrix (the first matrix, discounting possibility of any others at the moment), and reach the controls for the machines through the "core" area or whatever, messing them up and causing them to go screwy. In doing so, Neo was trapped in a coma because his mind/soul/whatever is still in the matrix with no way out. The dual-matrix theory includes no reason for why Neo is in a coma at the moment. Anyways, that was what I thought at first, not sure what I think now. =D

"5. the purpose of the ONE is to reboot the system. ooookaaayy.... how do you do that if you are INSIDE the system?"

If a virus in my computer can erase everything on the computer, then it's childsplay to just shut it down.

"just speculations? or is there any evidence?"

Nah, lots of evidence. There are many many parts in both "matrix" movies that have little "plays on words" to suggest just such a double, triple, multiple matrix theory. It helps to watch it a lot. =D Though I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Anyways, my 2c

-Xel

Notice that there's another discussion on this, in which all these suggestions have already been brought up.

And then again.
Why does it need to be another matrix?
Neo is a program, that is a fact.
A program that has discovered some sort of AI,
(just like the machines did), and now it is rampaging and murring for revolution.

Of course "the real world" is a matrix. And Neo is a program ("born within the matrix" :READ: Programmed),
and this is why he cannot die. And this is why he programmed Trinity not to die. Because he is a self standing/thinking program, within a matrix of matrix's, and with the power to choose the choices he can.

But he cannot, and will not exit the matrix.

I figure we will find Agent Smith and Neo (which now are the same thing... unplugged... found AI... whatever), fighting side by side, for different reasons, but with the same goal. Getting out.

And they will both find, that there is no "out" for them.

The oracle program knows this. But she is programmed to do what she must.
She is not good, she is not evil, she just is what she is, as they are.

At this point I am not really sure humans exsist at all, except the fact that Hollywood needs a happy ending.

What is the matrix?
It is the OS in which all live.

Bush: "This game will soon be over."
---
Chirak: "It's not a game. And its is not over."

Some good theories here. The last movie is going to rock like a stone!