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OK, you live in the Matrix, you witness a man in a suit fighting a man in black atire. You see this suit guy punch through a brick wall and the man in black jumps in the air, seems to even pause and defy gravity for a moment and kicks him in the head. You run away scared and thinking you might be dreaming.

A week later, You see ANOTHER man in black flying through the air. Its a bird? Its a plane? No, its Pleatherman !


Theres many events in the Matrix that consisted of people witnessing super human strengths and abilities. Not to mention the people simply MISSING either having their mind and body freed, but the people taken over by agents and killed.

Wouldnt these episodes cause the Matrix to crash? Id think a man flying would make the 6oclock news. The people within the Matrix do have a sense of reality. They know that a man running up walls, punching through bricks and flying are impossibilities.

Just like the UFOs making the news.

The men in black suits would be covering stuff up and erasing memories. Have you seen the animatrix?

Anyway, I don't think people seeing weird stuff would cause the matrix to crash. People would just think they are crazy or someone else is crazy. So what's so obvious?

hallucinations

Dunno mabye they just dont care and let the humans do it but it dosent really matter now though as smith has taken over every one lol , but i would say that the worst one to see would be in M1 were smith and Neo fight and smith is crushed by a train but then turns in to some one on the train and runs out the door after Neo lol what the hell would ou do if you saw that!!

Ever consider that the matrix would be reprogrammed after the aforementioned? Atleast to the degree to cover things up? What about all the unsolved mysteries we have here in the "real world' (hehehh..) where people have gone missing and unexplicable events happen? Example the fleet of navy aircraft that disappeared over the Bermuda triangle, UFO's, Bigfoot, the missing persons directory that takes up an entire level of FBI offices across the country? Hmmmm...should I worry?

*Sees agent JKozzy walk through the door -- jumps into him and assimulates his being Muhwahahahahahah!!!*

ok, everything unusual that happens in the Matrix is explained away in some way, whether it be angels, vampires, or aliens...if you were to see a man become an agent right in front of you, well, you probably wouldn't live longer than five more minutes, but assuming you did, you would think you were halucinating, or that you are sick...not many people are gonna say, "this world isnt real, this must be a programmed reality" after one such encounter...thats why we see Beyond, and other shorts in Animatrix and comics...

Not to mention - John Dancy's variation of the brain-in-a-vat theory of philosophy. A small excerp is below:



Basicly, being prisoners of the matrix, your mind cannot fathome that you are, indeed, trapped inside the matrix. There would be no possible way for you to conceive that you are inside a program, and, evenif you were to suggest this, you could not believe it because there is no connection with you, as your mental consiousness, and the real world. You cannot make a literal reference to something without knowing, first, that it exists.

For this and much more check out whatisthematrix.com on the philosophy pages. Also see Rene Descartes's book Meditations...

italian, u must remember the oracle's sayings in the reloaded. she told neo about this thing
also if any1 is watching this in the matrix, the code working 4 him is overwritten by an agent's program

lets be honest, no ones gonna miss people like Neo and the others, cos he spent his time searching for morpheus, he had no life

Oh Lord, let's not get into that, Meta; we will be here until the end of time!

mabye the arcitect rewrites the matrix to erase such things happening

However, I think I should point out to Meta that if you are saying that because of that no-one will ever think anything is wrong, that is not correct and is a mis-use of Putnam's theory. Putnam was not saying that no-one could possibly ever think they were brains in vats (or pods in a Matrix). People in the Matrix would be just as capable as doing that as you or I, their brains are identical.

They would just be completely unaware that what they imagined was a brain in a vat or a pod in a Matrix is, in fact, not actually that at all, having 'failed to refer' to it.

(I always find it useful (as does someone in that area) to object* these things, where an object* is an object in the Matrix- so the real world has pigeons, but the Matrix has pigeons*. So people in the Matrix would think of brains* in vats* instead of brains in vats)

But just because they fail to refer to the object it does not mean they do not recognise the concept. If any one of us can come up with the idea of the Matrix- as obviously we have- then anyone inside a Matrix can too, even though they would be academically mistaken about its true nature. (According to Putnam, anyway. I believe him but many don't). They could still BELIEVE it, just as much as you or I could.

As you point out, we cannot know if we ARE just brains in vats, yet you and I can freely discuss the possibility of being brains in vars and accept evidence if it is offered, even if we do not truly know what a brain or vat is until we got to the 'real' world and saw it.

It does seem to be a common misunderstanding of that essay that it was saying that no-one in the Matrix could realise they were. Check again, that is not what it says. It simply says they could not coherently express the fact that they were, is all. And that isn't due to some weird mind alteration. They would say it in the same way we do- in fact, you and I would be having this conversation IN the Matrix, and would believe it or not believe it as much there as here, and probably more so if we had seen half a dozen impossible things before breakfast. It is really a very academic point, as I say- fascinating but ultimately making no difference.

So basically, Putnam was saying- Why worry about being brains in vats? You don't even know what they ARE! He has a habit of being clever like that. But the basic philisophical issue- is reality as we see it?- remains the same.

Darn it, I bet we ARE here until the end of time now...

Mind you, that one on Dreams was dreadful. AND just a plug for the writer's book. Pfft.

Anyway, we can all assume that if the Matrix can re-set itself every so often without people noticing a problem, it can clean up small problems like this as well.

Very interesting stuff guys. I just thought of a bigger event to cover up or reprogram... Neo Flying down fifth avenue causing all that destruction from his hyper speed. Probably just written off as a Tornado in the city !

Ushgarak

No intent to argue philosophy here...because, as you said, we would be here to the end of time. I can only show you the door, it is you who has to walk through it and either accept what I am going to tell you or not. You just have to make up your own damn mind! LoL

However, the brain-in-a-vat theory would, by nature, not produce any evidence that you were just a brain in a vat. You could talk about being a brain in a vat, but you would have no basis, or no connection to the actual brain in a vat that you are, other than the coincidence that you suggested a theory that 99.9999999...% of all people would not accept.

And I quite enjoyed Rene Descartes book, which was written in like the 1700's? I don't think he's around today plugging his book LoL...maybe he is....**sarcastically teasing ragesRemourse** maybe he's one of the Neo's from the previous five times!!

well yes here is another one: If you don't believe in the matrix and you aren't unplugged yet. One day you see an agent fighting Neo what do you do. You don't turn into an agent you just run... But in the time in between what do you do? coz Neo and the crew can't get you out that fast and agents are maybe occupied doing other stuff. Can they sense it? I thought agents could only sense it when they knew that you were having contact with the real world so what if you aren't having contact with the ressistance and you don't become crazy afterwards? what happens?

Clavis

It should be expected that there is a program that runs along with the Agent programs that would "Suspend" people's memories that are still connected to the matrix. Remember in M1 when he was taken into custody, his mouth "melted" together, and they implanted the bug into him? Very machine world programming right? Did Neo loose his mind?

No. Quite the opposite, he's still as sane as the rest of us. He woke up from it all as if it were a dream. I think that we are to assume that this is the scenerio for all connected to the system. If an agent uses their body, or if there is an extreme absurdity such as Neo flying, and hundreds of Smiths running around, those who see it would be sent a suspend link and they would "wake up" in their beds the next day like it were a dream. That would be a means to protect the system.

Exactly as I was thinking. Thank you Meta!

Mike

I'm glad that you enjoyed - I noticed you said something along those lines, but didn't go into much detail and supportive evidence?

look, there are many 'paranormal' events that happen in the matrix, see the little boxes website

but if something REALLY strange and inexplainable happens, then they just edit it out of their memory

Obviously the brain in vat theory would not provide evidence, but what is being discussed here is the Matrix- which can, with Agents and so on.

And I was not talking about Descartes- I was talking about the essay about dreams on the Matrix website. It really is not much good (indeed, oither writers on the site take pains to point out its flaws) and they guy really does seem to be plugging hois book with it.

Ushgarak

I only mentioned brain-in-a-vat because of Jedi's comment:

I also reccommended Descartes book as opposed to the websites article...but some people are cheap.. Either way -- I was just messin with ya.

hagha

Messing... with Ush???
(DIVES for cover)

Omega

LL -- Yes - I'm messing with the one who gave me such a hard time when I first posted here!! But don't worry I think I can...errr...hack it...

meta> Let me give you a piece of advice, you come up against Ush, you do what we do, you run. Run FAST!!

Jedi

*real serious and quiet like* Right. *takes a drink from Dozer's stash of good stuff* So do you always look at the forum unencoded?

yes, i mean, after a while, you don't even see it, all you see is omega, meta, newb...

i think if some one saw neo flying or something like that it be like they would remember it for how ever long neo is in the matrix and hwen hes out of the matrix its like it never happened. does that make eny sence??

NO

Interesting view on it, Matrix, and we can hardly prove it wrong, but we don't have any reason to think it is so, either.