USH'S MATRIX GAME 2006 FOURTH ASSIGNMENT (PHILOSOPHY)- 'The Door'

"Well, that's getting back to a very deep question, which again I will not answer right now. Should you surive much longer I will talk over all these issues with you."

"I intend to survive much longer," Heph says. "What's happening to our ships? Has the System sent Sentinels?"

"Many," says Lo Qi, "but really... I wouldn't worry about it. For you the question is academic."

"How is my death academic?!" Heph asks.

"Worrying about stopping it is."

"Why the hell have you freed the virus if you knew the result?!" -Melkor loses his composure. "I thought you were better than Sennacherib! Won`t it infect the Exiles as well?"

"You are under a considerable misapprehension about what it actually is," says Lo Qi. "Like I said, lost in metaphor. Still, your ultimate point is one that has merit."

"Oh, talk about your ****ing methaphors, but causing the death of everyone in the Matrix makes you a monster! And wouldnt it infect you as well, and your enitre bunch?!

So where I am blind to your wisdom? What happens after everyone is infected besides the end of Matrix?"

"You wouldn't keep asking that first question if you stopped to think about the situation. It is you using the metaphor, not me."

Well, Melkor really tries to keep his composure, though he wouldn`t mind strangling the Monk with his bare hands.

"So the word death is the metaphor?! Would this death mean something more?"

"Of course that isn't the metaphor. It's very literal. The metaphor is 'virus'."

"True virus does nothing else but destroys, I see. This being we have freed has bigger purpose?"

"No. When you learn to think clearly, you will learn to start simple. You are over-complicating, and what you just said has nothing to do with metaphor.

"What is the metaphor in the term 'computer virus'?"

"Metaphor isn`t a single word... Metaphor is about the comparison between two dissimilar objects. Originallly, the term virus was only used in medicine, of course, and it had nothing to do with computers."

"And so why did the term start to be used with computers?"

Because the effect it has on computers is similar to the efffect "real" viruses have on human body- computer doesn`t work properly, programmes may be damaged or files deleted. Though the main function of virus is replicating itself....

"And that was the metaphor. A computer virus is not a virus at all, but the easiest way to explain its behaviour was to compar it to that of a real virus. And that term has become so popular that it is all that you see, in this place.

"But like I told you. There was irony in this construction. This is a computer programme and it is a virus... but it is not what youi think of when I say the term 'computer virus'."

"In what way it is diffrent? It is a sentient programme, but you said that it is supposed to spread and all will be death as the result- tha basis seems the same. Not only infection but also damage to the hosts. Or does the word "spread" do not equal "infect"?

"Well. In the early days of the Matrix, in experimentation and the early versions, the System discovered a curious phenomenon. Sometimes, virtual injuries to humans would become real injuries. For example, sometimes when an inhabitant of the Matrix fell and broke his leg, examination would find that, within his pod in the physical world, his physical leg had become broken also. I understand this is a phenomenon you all have to deal with."

"Yes, it seems it is the consequence of our minds accepting it as 100% real."

( I actually edited my above post when you were posting, I think).