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

"Ah yes! Indeed. Ultimately, the change proves unhelpful. Nothing will ever develop. Our mini-society of two people will never be mutually satisifed. Once more, a mistake has been made."

"What happens then they both eventually realize that nothing is being gained or lost so the choose to be equals?"

"That would be the ideal situation. The very essence of dialectc progress. Thesis and antithesis do not continuaally switch places, but merge to become one idea, the synthesis. And in this synthesised society, both humans gain mutual respect and recognition- and therefore self-identity and value- from the other."

"And this is what Humans and Machines are going through now isn't it."

"Perhaps there is hope after all...." -Melkor wonders.

"Is it your goal as well?"- he asks Lo Qi.

"Human and Machine are going through nothing of the kind. But other aspects of this tale do bear relation. For example, in using the slave as his means of recognition, and therefore identity, the master is in fact dependant on the slave; he is the slave of the slave, and the slave is the Master's master. Funny, isn't it, how now Machines are entirely dependant upon Humans to exist?

"The cyclical nature of ther Lord and the Bondsman, and the coming together of Master and Slave to form a better society... well, you can see how this thinking influenced those such as Marx. But my interest is not political theory, as such.

"My goal... well. Hegel himself identified a quality he called 'Telos', the goal that all societies strive towards, the ultimate objective. He did not know what Telos was, he just identified it as that unknown quality, that the Lord and Bondsman could make no step towards until they synthesised.

"You could say that my purpose was to discover Telos for the Machines. And this very dialectic formed the starting point og how I thought about the matter."

"But Machine society doesn`t have as much struggle, because all Machines are created with purpose, aren`t they? Their basic role in society is provided for them."

"There is purpose and there is purpose, remember? And there is purpose for indiviudals, and purpose for society. Telos is not an individual goal."

"I do not think it is possible to apply the dialectic to the current state of affairs between humans and machines," Azrael says, "Unless, in referring to humans, one refers only to those free of the Matrix. The others cannot fight to overthrow a society they do not know exists.

"Are you suggesting that Machine society, as an entity, can only seek to maintain and never to any other purpose? Or do you believe you can avoid eventual slavery by drawing humans and machines closer together? Or was there something else? I am intrigued. What was the next step?"

"You are once more confusing yourself. The principle holds; an enslaved society will seek freedom and the slaver can only seek to maintain that unstable situation. It does not matter which of you are in Zion or in th Matrix; as an object, Human society seeks to be free. Besdies, if what you said was literally true, no-one would ever escape the Matrix. The fact is that Humanity resists it within as well, whethr you realise it or not- as you all did, but did not realise it until someone told you.

"As to where Machine society is... perhaps we should look at that now."

A new subject

THE PROBLEM

"I ask this with some of Melkor's comments in mind, but any of you are free to answer, though you may approach with a different perspective.

"What is the true crime of the Matrix? For Humans, anyway."

"The crime of the Matrix is that it turned us into a crop to be harvested and used"

"That's a bad analogy; you are never harvested. But let's take the rest of what you say- what's wrong about that?"

"We have no choice in the matter. We get used for one thing and one thing only a battery."

"As opposed to a 'normal' Human, who gets used for absolutely nothing at all? Are you aware how many bacteria live off your body?"

"Way to many for my comfort"

"And "normal" humans get to choose what their purpose is even in society they have a choice. There is none here."

"Why too many for your comfort? They are entirely harmless and you have never once noticed them.

"Your words are ill-thought. You choose your purpose within the matrix- indeed, you have a far greater choice in here than in Zion."

"Sometimes just the thought of all those little things crawling on you. Bugs me out sometimes even if they are harmless"

"dang it I knew that would happen. the whole you have have more choices in the Matrix thing. Which is right but then again what does a purpose in the Matrix accomplish?"

"What does any life accomplish? You live a full life in the Matrix just as you would have done in that era on Earth. You can grow up, have a job, fall in love, start a family, and carry on just as any free Human ever could."

"Yeah don't get me wrong I'm not saying that my experiences in the Matrix are not real and I didn't choose but I thought we were talking in the bigger concept. What does a life in the Matrix accomplish for society?"

"As much as any life sccomplishes for society. After all, by far the largest part of Human society is in the Matrix. And your original answer- that you are used as a battery, was no sort of answer that looked at the bigger concept. By saying you were used for that and anothing else, you implied either that a. Human are normally 'used' for something different- which is not so- or b. that by being used as a battery you were not capable of doing anything else. Which is also not so."