Matrix questions

Originally posted by Lag
I wouldn't dismiss the DNA theory so quickly. DNA doesn't tell who a person is in detail, but it has a great deal to do with who we are. What you said about the twins is true which is why, if this theory were correct, it takes such a long time for another One to surface. You are more likely to find a genius in a family with a history of geniuses than in a family with a history of idiots. Same with everything, musicians, doctors, professors, and so on. Actually there is no reason for both theories to be correct. It could be a computer code and also a gene past on. When the One is born the Machines recognize his brain patterns and implant the code. There is no proof of this theory and realy no reason to think this true.

Good point. We really don't know HOW the matrix is actually generated in the human brains that are being used as a biological power source. Frankly, we have very good reasons to think it is not possible to generate artificial epiphenomena in human brains, since the brain is a biological organ and only exists in a body such as we have, and all we know is that if this brain of ours did not exist in the sort of body we have, then it would not generate the experiences it does. The assumption the movie makes is that, in fact, the machine mind CAN generate some sort of "code" that is then input into the brains it uses as a power source and that, somehow, by mimicking objective reality, create such belief in these human batteries that the question whether they are experiencing nothing more than a shared hallucination does not even arise. That, I take it, is the reason why the Machine Mind needs somebody like Neo. A machine mind, even one of this awesome power, simply cannot deal with reality in the same way that a human being can, for the simple reason that the Machine is not human. If you change the nature of the sensorium you change the nature of what is sensed. A dog, for example, even if it had the intelligence of an average human, would still experience reality in radically different ways than a real human would. It would also have a radically different concept of what is important, and what its purpose is, and therefore what parts of experience it will attend to and what parts it will ignore.

I'm not excactly sure how it was said, but the Smith/Oracle said something like "I've seen this before" this line alone means this happened before "I'm supposed to say something here." Correct me if I'm wrong, and please do, the only way the Oracle, the Architect, and the Oracle/Smith knows something is going to happen is because it has happened already, I think that's right, but Trinity changed all that. I know I'm basically repeating myself and Mantrainer5 tried answering this question, but Oracle/Smith doesn't just know the end is there, he takes it a step further and says "I've seen this before" and that makes no sense, unless I, being the human I am, missed something.

Remember, though, that Smith is a virus whose course evidently was set when Neo entered him in M1. His expectation was upset, however, as he was tricked by Neo. Still, it may be that the broad arch of events, in general outline, has happened before. Perhaps there were certain expectations. You know how we humans work very hard for something to come about, and it seems virtually certain to come about, and we may even have a lot invested in a certain outcome, or, at least, that there will be a determinate outcome, and yet, we are surprised when "reality" throws us a curve ball and something else happens.

A successful matrix will throw curve balls. In essence, that is the purpose of the Oracle, as she admits. She exists to destabilize the matrix. By definition, she can't KNOW what's going to happen, other than the high probably that something determinate is going to happen. She did not know that Neo would destroy Smith. How could she possibly know that Neo would be able to work out a deal with the Machine Mind? She didn't. She hoped, perhaps. How much she actually had invested in the particular outsome is a whole other conversation. I am not sure I answered your question to your satisfaction, but that's my best shot.

I know somebody is going to try and answer this question, but the facts are this scene never happened before, but somehow, impossibly, the Oracle/Smith says he saw that before. I'll be impressed to be proven wrong, but I think this is unanswerable or maybe it just doesn't matter as much as I'm making it out to be. Maybe it was just a script flaw or something.

The fact that Smith (not the Oracle) says he saw that before, simply demonstrates that he has been tricked by Neo. After all, if he knew he was going to be destroyed by Neo and the Machine Mind, he may have done something else. I don't really think so, because I don't think a virus program has the ability to do much beyond what it is designed to do. Smith doesn't really have any choice. Actually, none of the programs has any choice. And the human batteries, obviously, have no choice or any ability to make any choice. Zion has choices. Neo has choices. But only Neo has the particular choices to influence the nature of the matrix.

I see now, it's not that he saw it before that should be the subject of the scene, it's who showed it to him or blinded him that was the significance of the scene. HHmmm... I lived up to my name as a human and was wrong.

Machines don't have a choice, you're right about that, but once they complete their purpose they do have a choice. To be or not to be. Some choose to exist in the matrix and some choose to go back to the source. The point being they are given a choice. Same with the jacked in humans. They are given a choice, although it's only in the mind and not immediately made available to the person's consciousness it is given to them, to reject the matrix or not. The subconscious choice was the doing and half of the infinite purpose of the Oracle.

So correct me if I'm wrong, you are saying that maybe, if the theory of having superior genes is correct, the machines are using Neo as a vehicle to better understand what it is to be a human in how they interact with curtain things and situations such as love and choice. They would need Neo who's mind is able to reach the depths of no depths and connect with the machines and show them a better matrix. It's hard for my mind to trace back how we came to this semi-conclusion, but it might be possible.

Originally posted by Lag
I see now, it's not that he saw it before that should be the subject of the scene, it's who showed it to him or blinded him that was the significance of the scene. HHmmm... I lived up to my name as a human and was wrong.

Machines don't have a choice, you're right about that, but once they complete their purpose they do have a choice. To be or not to be. Some choose to exist in the matrix and some choose to go back to the source. The point being they are given a choice.

I didn't qualify my bold generalization and I should have. I said programs really don't have a choice. That's not exactly correct, because it seems that some programs, such as the Oracle, and the parent programs of Sati, have become "self-aware". If you are self-aware, i.e. conscious, then you do have the basic choice you describe. Actually, you may have quite a few other choices as well, for as we know, the Oracle also makes choices and talks a lot about them. She tells us that the Architect, however, can't get beyond choice, or something like that, meaning that he has no choice but to solve mathematical equations whose solutions stabilize the matrix. So maybe consciousness is not a sufficient condition for making choices, since the Architect appears to us as conscious, but he can't choose to do anything other than what he does. In the last scene, for example, the Oracle asks the Architect, what about those who wish to be free, and the Architect says they will be free, and the Oracle says, do I have your word? (or promise, I forget), and the Architect says, Of course, I am not human. The obvious meaning is that because he is a program the desired result is, for him, preordained, since he has already programmed it that way (or solved the mathematical equations that will generate the promised result). The less obvious meaning is that he didn't really have a choice in the matter. That's what distinguishes him from a human being.

In relation to the anti-Neo, once Smith mutates into a virus he has no choice but to do what he does; he is not a rogue program, he is a loose cannon seeming to move under his own power to an utterly predetermined result, like Ahab in Moby Dick. Melville in that story even compares Ahab to a machine that in some sense has lost his humanity, since he can no longer attend to reason. He has simply given himself over to the quest to destroy the White Whale. Similiarly, Smith is on a quest to destroy the Matrix, which in his view is the cause of his own suffering. We don't know, do we? why exactly he hates humans so, other than a certain fastidiousness that we in our humanity tend to associate with machines--clean, well oiled, perfect, not dirty or sweaty or anything identifiably human (grin).

Same with the jacked in humans. They are given a choice, although it's only in the mind and not immediately made available to the person's consciousness it is given to them, to reject the matrix or not. The subconscious choice was the doing and half of the infinite purpose of the Oracle.

I am not sure I follow you here. Are you talking about Zion personnel who "jack in" to the matrix? Or the human batteries whose electrical energy fuels the Machine Mind?

It is interesting to speculate whether or how due to the Big Peace Deal, the human batteries will be given a choice to opt out. Clearly that is stated by the Architect as what will happen, but I wonder merely by raising the possibility as a real alternative many of the energy drones may have their hallucination made clear to them and thus cause it to be undermined. But maybe not. The guy in M1 who betrays Morpheus obviously preferred his hallucination to the real thing . . .

As for those who jack into the matrix, when you say ït's only in the mind, remember that it is still real for everyone except Neo. You can still die. It may be that the bullet that kills you is "only" a software-generated facsimile, rather than made of steel and lead, it will still kill you. Neo has the unique ability to "deconstruct" or dissolve the facsimile, or possibly his mind is able to get control of it and thus bend it to his will--somehow he can access the program code that sends the bullet, or makes the bullet what it is in the matrix. This gets tough to talk about after a while, but I think this is fairly clear, isn't it?

The thing is, the jacked-in humans have exactly the same power of choice in the matrix as they have out of the matrix--just the context changes. If you are human, you have a different set of choices if it's your job to run IBM or whether it's your job to manage the local MacDonald's franchise. We don't say the one has choices and other doesn't. Both have different choices, including the choice to continue in that particular job, or prepare for a "better" job that would change the choice array in a particular segment of space-time.

So correct me if I'm wrong, you are saying that maybe, if the theory of having superior genes is correct, the machines are using Neo as a vehicle to better understand what it is to be a human in how they interact with curtain things and situations such as love and choice. They would need Neo who's mind is able to reach the depths of no depths and connect with the machines and show them a better matrix. It's hard for my mind to trace back how we came to this semi-conclusion, but it might be possible.

Yes, more or less. It's not clear, is it? that superior genes are needed by the Machine Mind. Clearly it would be better if the One were smarter than dumber, but he doesn't have to be a genius I don't think. The key thing is that he needs to be a human being.

Look at it this way. A human's brain develops in response to contact with his environment. Alter the environment, or deprive him of his ability to use his senses, you dramatically alter his future ability to interact with his environment in a successful way. The brain itself is a dynamic organ--you use it or you lose it. To some extent it can be supposed that the artificial reality generated by the matrix gives the human energy sources some minimal excitation of their cerebral cortices; but the theory is that this minimal "floor" standard shifts over time and the standard, after a while, becomes more demanding. That is, the human batteries either flourish or die. If the same standard is maintained without experiential upgrades to the matrix, the batteries will tend to die. Anyway, that's not my theory, that's the theory set forth by Agent Smith in his discussion with Morpheus in M1. As he phrases it, the original matrix was too perfect, it didn't have any suffering in it and the Machine Mind lost vast human crops--they simply died--probably through boredom trying to figure out whether they were real or not and just decided the hell with it. LOL. Agent Smith didn't tell us how they offed themselves!

Anyway, once given some real facsimile suffering, the crops sprang back to human life. Presumably the trajectory has to be upward and onward. As in, what have you done for me lately? So the Machine Mind has discovered it's got one hell of a problem. It just wanted to go about its simple business of doing whatever machines do when human beings no longer program them or direct them, and it discovered that it still needs the obnoxious humans after all; and not only that, but now the Machine Mind must spend vast amounts of resources and software ingenuity to keep the damn things flourishing. Probably not a foreseeable event! (I know that the Machine Mind, in the scene with Neo, appears to be in a state of denial about this, but that just goes to show that maybe this Machine Mind is starting to develop human qualities after all! Despite its saying it didn't need anything, it went and made the Big Peace Deal with Neo. Ergo, it said one thing, but then went ahead and did another--the right thing in this case, since if Neo didn't destroy Smith, Smith aimed to take out Neo & thereby the matrix, and thus rendering the Machines absent their power source).

This creates one real BIG problem. The last thing the Machine Mind needs is a bunch of loose free humans running around screwing things up and making even more trouble for the Machines. So programs are written and real machines are created that go after Zion--not to obliterate Zion but to keep it under control, contained. Why? The Machine has discovered that if it can fully exploit the mind of one real human being and use that knowledge to upgrade the matrix, the shared hallucination becomes more successful, more "real" to the human batteries whose consciousnesses feed off it and depend upon it to excite their brains and make them want to continue to live, to flourish.

Zion is needed to extract Neo (or some real human who might function as Neo) so Neo can do his thing. In the particular incarnation we view in the movie series, Neo's nemesis is Smith. But not every incarnation necessarily will have a Smith for Neo to contend with. Maybe next time around something else will happen. but we know it's going to be dramatic, exciting, death-defying, and fully capable of engaging the emotional sensibilities of the people involved, and especially the sensibilities of Neo, because Neo's functioning brain becomes a source of knowledge to the Machine Mind on how to program the matrix to make it even better.

Clearly this is not a trilogy! It has the potential of becoming a vast series, like Star Trek, only to cease when its target audience becomes either so philosophically jaded that it's just too boring to discuss anymore, or the audience just moves on to the next movie thrill.

Really, anything can happen, anything at all . . . .

Did that little girl creat a new world?

no she was just a program incharge on the weather......

Did u kno Mr Reves (Bad Spellin) Is Bisexual....... And his G/F died during one of the films

danistar> no, she did not create a new world, nor is she in control of the weather...she created a beautiful sunrise, because it is in her power to do so, because she has no parameters controlling what she can and cannot do...

Originally posted by Mantrainer5
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. . . the Machine Mind has agreed to make peace with Neo, destroy the computer virus that has become Smith, and thus call off Smith's war against Zion (we know that the Computer Mind can't control Smith and Smith is a threat to the Machine World). It is understood, of course, that the Machine Mind needs Zion, for only Zion can provide the means of retrieving Neo from the Matrix. Neo is needed by the Machine Mind to refine and improve the matrix so that the human batteries will not only survive, but flourish. This is a never-ending process that is itself subject to evolutionary change. The destruction of Zion is a priority of Smith, NOT the Machine Mind.

Upon further reflection and discussion with others, part of this is wrong I think. Smith is NOT at war with Zion; Smith is at war with Neo. So the problem would appear to be how to account for the fact that the Machine Mind appears to be destroying Zion, yet we also know that if Zion is completely destroyed there wil be no personnel to extract another Neo out of the Matrix. Here is the solution.

The Machines do want to destroy Zion; in fact, they have destroyed Zion many times over. The difference THIS time is that in M2 the Architect gives Neo a forced choice. Either he can return to the source and all of Zion will be destroyed (but not the human power cells), and he will be allowed to extract a certain small number of humans with which he will will be able to regenerate Zion. The Machine Mind is a participant in this process since it is needed to program the humans at the time of their extraction with sufficient knowledge about how to live in Zion for Zion to be self-sufficient, etc. Neo is reabsorbed, i.e. the patterns of his neocortex are digitized and integrated into the Machine Mind, now that his "real life" experiences can be used to refresh the template for a new, upgraded matrix. This is how things have always worked.

In M2, however, Neo has fallen in love with Trinity. Neo chooses to go through the other door--the "Trinity" door--and the Architect says that if Neo chooses this door all of humanity will be destroyed. For the first time ever, the Neo makes this choice, he puts his love of Trinity on a higher level than his love of humanity. That choice changes everything.

Neo may not completely believe, too, that all of humanity will be destroyed. I think he tends to regard it more as a risk than a done deal, for, after all, it is the Architect who is telling him this, and the Architect doesn't know everything, can't know everything, and, in fact, can't even grasp how a choice can lead to unpredictable consequences--he is a program after all who the Oracle says cannot see beyond choice.

Let's take a look at a related question about Zion. Why does the Machine Mind wish to destroy Zion? It needs to destroy Zion to prevent Zion from getting too much power. How would Zion get too much power? Through memory. The longer Zion exists generationally, the more powerful it necessarily becomes because it integrates more and more knowledge about how the Machine Mind works.

The whole world projected in this series of movies is incredibly depressing as far as the fate of humanity is concerned. There seems not to be a glimmer of hope anywhere. Except now. We do get a glimmer, metaphorically. When Trinity & Neo turn their ship upward to avoid the onslaught of sentinels emanating from the Machine City, Trinity gets a glimpse of sunlight over and above the dark cloud that entombs the earth's surface. The big peace deal permits, for the first time ever, the continued existence of Zion.

If Zion continues to exist, then it is reasonable to believe that human knowledge, based on experience and memory of that experience, will increase exponentially, creating innumerable scenarios for future movies exploring whether Zion can reassert control over the machines, or whether the machines can be induced to give up the use of humans as power cells, or forced to. There can be struggles within Zion about what the proper course of action should be, with rebels working at the margins. What would the machine response be?

But what about the light sentinal?

My question is why do they refer to Jesus Christ in Revo......
Do they believe in religion or what?
I mean wouldnt this have been from the Matrix world 🤨

.......but one thing i am not sure of is that when in the real world they showed the sun then i had the feel that the peace would be re-estd. rather firmly by clearing the sky and the deal would be that of solar energy......but they estd. the peace on a rather loose note.........bcoz its shown in the anmatrix also and in revolutions that machines dont want to harm humans by rama-kandra...........

Originally posted by jetzhere101
.......but one thing i am not sure of is that when in the real world they showed the sun then i had the feel that the peace would be re-estd. rather firmly by clearing the sky and the deal would be that of solar energy......but they estd. the peace on a rather loose note.........bcoz its shown in the anmatrix also and in revolutions that machines dont want to harm humans by rama-kandra...........

I agree completely about showing the sun & the dramatic point that scene made in the movie. It's just a hope, however, since there is no evidence that clearly suggests that the human power cells will be given up. Only if the humans themselves decide to leave the matrix. Still, that's something, and offers optimism.

2. The Oracle (in her new guise)says that she sees the end of the war one way or another. By this she means that either a) Smith will destroy everything, man and machine, therefore no war or b) Neo will save the world by doing what he does at the end of the film. But the Oracle does not seem to know in which way it will end. She knows there has to be an end, but she doesn't know how. If she doesn't know how, then Agent Smith doesn't know how... even when he takes her over. This is why Agent Smith says 'Is it over?' at the end... because he doesn't know! What confuses me is that she also sayd that the Architect 'can't see past choice'. If she is the Architect's opposite, then can she see past choice or not? If she can, then she would know how it ends.

Couldn't that be because when Neo meets the Architect he actually needs to go through the right door to "reboot" mankind. But he takes the left one to save Trinity. So the Oracle possible could not know the "right-door-future" since all the other "Neos" walked out the the left door.

She states that she didn't know what would happen... she only hoped that she'd be correct. And there are no other Neos!

Originally posted by Moritz
Couldn't that be because when Neo meets the Architect he actually needs to go through the right door to "reboot" mankind. But he takes the left one to save Trinity. So the Oracle possible could not know the "right-door-future" since all the other "Neos" walked out the the left door.

YES! That's exactly correct.

Originally posted by The Unknown
She states that she didn't know what would happen... she only hoped that she'd be correct.

Correct again.

And there are no other Neos!

We know, do we not? that there have been previous matrices. Agent Smith tells us that in M1. Also we are told in M2 that the matrix is very old, etc. There are numerous other little hints.

Also, we know that Zion expects to see The One. That expectation had to be programmed into Zion when Neo extracted them when Zion began.

So, yes, of course there have been other Neos. Every time there's a new matrix there's got to be a new Neo, since the new matrix could not exist without the new neocortex the last Neo provided.

There's a whole lot of unresolved interpretive problems to the storyline if there's only one Neo. Nothing would make any sense.

There hasn't been other Neo's there has been other ones, but not other Neos

OK, How are they ment too ask all the people in the matrix if they want too be in the real world!?!??! The Artcitect said he would set them free , if they wanted to be freed?

So in the matrix world are they gonna do some kinds Live Tanoy Broadcast??

"whos wants to see the real world' 'if you do please tale the pill'

Originally posted by ShOota
OK, How are they ment too ask all the people in the matrix if they want too be in the real world!?!??! The Artcitect said he would set them free , if they wanted to be freed?

So in the matrix world are they gonna do some kinds Live Tanoy Broadcast??

"whos wants to see the real world' 'if you do please tale the pill'

Originally posted by SpikeSpiegel
There hasn't been other Neo's there has been other ones, but not other Neos

Fair enough. I didn't mean to say the One would be exactly the same human being each time. Just that there would be someone who would answer to the purpose of Neo. On the other hand, we don't know, do we, that the next One would not also be called Neo. Also, we don't know whether the Machine Mind has not found a way to clone and then modify the DNA of the next human marked for Neohood, do we?

Originally posted by ShOota
OK, How are they ment too ask all the people in the matrix if they want too be in the real world!?!??! The Artcitect said he would set them free , if they wanted to be freed?

So in the matrix world are they gonna do some kinds Live Tanoy Broadcast??

"whos wants to see the real world' 'if you do please tale the pill'

The choice could be made manifest to the human power cells. Cells could go psychotherapy, for example, a conversation might ensue, and if it seemed as if the cells were unhappy with their lives in any profound way, the psychotherapist could suggest the option of entering a new sort of reality. Just take this here blue pill. Just remember, however, there will be no going back, (or would there?)