Preview

A Brief Review Of The Matrix By George Berkeley

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
515 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Brief Review Of The Matrix By George Berkeley
George Berkeley had a theory of immaterialism. In The Matrix, the question “What is real?” can relate to George Berkeley’s Theory of Immaterialism. There are many examples throughout the movie but the main examples are perceiving the senses, perceiving through the mind and perceiving what is real or not.
Berkeley’s theory relates to the Matrix when he was describing that when you think of a cherry you “perceive the sensible qualities such as the colors, flavors, and textures”(Berkeley). The first example that relates to this theory is when Neo is given his first meal and it looks like soup however, all the food they eat is the same, but it is their minds that see what they are eating. Another example is when Cypher has a meeting with an agent and says "“You know, I know that this steak doesn't exist. I know when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, do you know what I've realized? Ignorance is bliss” (Wachowski). Berkeley would believe that how you feel, smell, taste, or see is just the mind. If a person decided that they wanted to eat a steak their minds would think of all qualities that a steak has.
…show more content…
An example from the movie the matrix is the scene when Neo and Morpheus visit the Oracle and Neo sees a boy bending spoon. The boy says “Do not try to bend the spoon that is impossible instead, only try to realize the truth,…that there is no spoon, then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends it is only yourself” (Wachowski).That is why Neo believed that the spoon does not exist and is only in his mind and is why he was able to bend the spoon without touching it. Berkeley believed that peoples minds perceive without us trying to and that comes naturally to our

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Early in the movie, Neo pulls a book off of a shelf, Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulations, and opens it to reveal that it contains electronic contraband. In an instant, the directors ask us to consider his work. It completely avoids asking the logical question that follows after finding out that all of 1999 is an illusion: How are we to determine the truth or reality of any experience? The moment we believe that our senses are untrue, we can never fully trust them again. The Cartesian advice that fits this scenes is: “it is the mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once.” (Descartes 60) With The Matrix being…

    • 301 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Eventually, you will have a choice to make; a choice that will define: “How to survive life in, The Matrix?” In ‘The Matrix’ nothing is real however, your mind has been conditioned to believe it is real! The Matrix is far too big to defeat; no one can escape it, and we haven’t the means or intelligence to beat those in control! Through my research, I discovered that America is a society of functional illiterates!…

    • 18144 Words
    • 57 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    |Don’t ask, Don’t tell |This policy was implemented, by President Clinton to add to a prior policy which was denying admittedly gay |…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    One of the finest points that Plato made in his essay, was that if a man were to gaze at shadows all his life, the man would surely believe this to be reality. “To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.” This quote defines what humans see as reality. It shows that what we see, we know to be true. Plato wanted his apprentice to consider the option, that maybe what we know to be true is in fact a lie. The Matrix also relays this concept to the modern day world. Morpheus states, “The Matrix is a computer generated dreamworld.” This Dream-world is much like the shadow images that the prisoners in Plato’s cave experienced. The People in both believed the deception that veiled them from the truth to be real. When in fact their reality was far from the truth, this represents the knowledge a human gets in life. If a person only learns of shadows his entire life, when…

    • 959 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    * Consequently, “How can we be sure our brain isn’t being tricked by some simulation to believe things are real, when they aren’t? This is how matrix proposes the challenge of epistemological skepticism.…

    • 383 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Phil 201 essay

    • 675 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Comparing and contrasting the synopsis “The Matrix” to Plato's “The Allegory Of The Cave” and also Descartes “Meditation I Of The Things Of Which We May Doubt” which have several similarities and also some differences. In all three of these stories the main idea is that reality is in question. In the Matrix, the human being is in a pod like machine that is controlled by a computer simulating what we think and know to be reality. Reality is not only created but manipulated to deceive what is truly surrounding you, when you are clearly in a pod unaware of what reality really is. In Plato's “The Allegory of the Cave” this also focuses on two different realities based on what is in fact real and what is perceived. Plato's view on the prisoners being fooled into a false reality by placing fake objects around them to trick their perception of reality and also put them in a one track state of mind, while life goes on outside of where they are captive. This is similar to The Matrix because in both stories the people are being manipulated to believe a reality outside of what is truly happening at the present time. In both stories, the person that has been captive for a certain period of time but then is able to experience reality outside of just manipulated perception has doubts, they are in disbelief of what they are actually able to witness for the first time. Reality, not perception but what is truly real happening and not being simulated or manipulated so that you would be fooled into believing something that is not real. In the Matrix, Neo lived a pretty normal life as an everyday human being but could not sleep well and like Plato stated that the prisoner would have to sense something, get some kind of feeling that something just was not quite right about his surroundings and the way they were existing. Another similarity is that the prisoners and pods were being manipulated to believe a false reality by people above them.…

    • 675 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Theory Matrix

    • 652 Words
    • 3 Pages

    | |Major Concepts |Process of Theory Proposed |Process-Driven Quality |Customer-Driven Quality |Company Example That Has Applied |…

    • 652 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    It is very interesting looking back at the works of Plato and Descartes in comparison to more modern works such as the blockbuster hit “The Matrix”. When examining The Matrix we see a complex world built by machines portraying to the human race a virtual world. This virtual world allows the human race to perceive a reality around them, a world built with the intention of blinding people from the ultimate reality that what they perceive to be real is an illusion.…

    • 1825 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Theoretical Matrix

    • 1468 Words
    • 6 Pages

    | Lewin’s Field Theory is based upon the premise of organizational change. Using a three stage process of change Unfreeze, Move, and Refreeze. When implementing change, Lewin insisted that –“what does not work is telling people they need to change.” Instead change is based upon behaviors which are a person’s interactions within a group or environment or context within an organization. Lewin’s formula {B = f (P, E)}, where B = behavior is a function of a person’s (P) interactions within the environment (E), also known as context explains the unique relationship between a person and their interaction within the environment. This theory state in order to motivate individuals to change you must create dissatisfaction; breaking “social habits” or group norm start with creating a sense disequilibrium and discomfort, for the individual. This is known as Unfreezing or changing old habits. Moving or creating new methods of operating is most effective when done in a group setting and is based upon the idea – people normally do not resist change, but resist how change is implemented. Refreezing is where management reinforces newly group established…

    • 1468 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The widely popular science fiction movie, “The Matrix,” directed by the Wachowski brothers deals with a false reality. In this, people are kept in shells as energy sources and plugged into a computer simulation of a world that they believe is real and concrete. The premise is that artificially intelligent machines surpassed the intellect of humans and have risen up against them. Cut off from the sun, their source of energy, they turn to humans as the ultimate renewable source of energy. The story centered on Neo and his quest to learn what, in fact, the Matrix actually was. Eventually a man by the name of Morpheus who was the leader of a group trying to destroy the Matrix invites Neo to take part in a journey to discover the truth. Neo took a pill and was released from the Matrix to discover what the world had become. While in the real world, Neo became part of a group…

    • 1739 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Terra Gatson Essay

    • 619 Words
    • 2 Pages

    At the end of the Matrix we were left with a piece to my understanding that had me thinking we were living in a computer based world but I looked passed it, but it sometimes have me thinking. The Matrix is really based on Descartes which is about the human…

    • 619 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Paper

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The following essay which were I am comparing and contrasting the differences and similarities of the movie The Matrix and Plato’s and Descartes articles. The similarities that all three has is they are all asking is the world we live in is it real or is it a figment of our imagination and someone is playing a mean joke on us. They also talk about our minds being controlled by someone or something outside of us, much more like an outer body experience. The Matrix is not real and focuses more on the mind and how the mind is being manipulated and Pluto is talking about the senses and how the senses can be manipulated and can confuse us and put doubts in our mind. In the Matrix, Mr. Anderson who is better known by the name Neo, works for a software corporation but at night he is a computer hacker. All articles discuss some type of reflections and different meaning about life and how we view it. The Matrix was a computer with programming simulation of the world that was experienced by virtual lives by being an individual player. They saw what it felt like to be born, growing up, getting a job, getting old, and dying. Mr. Anderson aka “Neo” couldn’t accept “The Matrix”, he had all types of mixed emotions and then thought that his life was a lie.…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    What if the world everyone perceives as a reality is only an elaborate deception? Human beings believe they are living in realities because they do not know of anything else. What they feel, see, hear, taste, and feel all contribute to their subconscious belief of physical existence. As people dream, however, they usually cannot recognize that they are not living through the events—that is, until they wake up. What if they do not wake up? How would they know the difference between their false perceptions and reality? The Ancient Greek philosopher Plato explores this concept within an example he uses in his work The Republic. In his example, known as the “Allegory of the Cave”, Plato uses an allegorical cave to show how humans are uncomfortable when exposed to the truth and that they are manipulated by higher authorities. In their 1999 motion picture The Matrix, the Wachowski brothers use a computer program to display similar ideals of Plato's allegory, including how humans are controlled and negatively react to the truth. Plato's “Allegory of the Cave” serves as a philosophical basis to The Matrix, as both works suggest that humans express discomfort while exposed to truth and both argue that people are controlled by higher authorities.…

    • 870 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What is real? Our perception of reality is often a product of the environment in which we live. In general, we…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I do not think the argument presented by Berkeley is a valid one. For an argument to be valid, it must be true that if all the premises are true then the conclusion is true. If all the premises are not true then the conclusion will be false, making the argument invalid. The first premise we are presented with states that we perceive ordinary objects. This premise is true because people have the ability to perceive ordinary objects such as cars, trees, and books. It doesn’t matter if these perceptions are only ideas in our minds or material objects we can touch, what matters is that it is true we can perceive ordinary objects. The second premise we are presented with states that we perceive only ideas. This premise is false because we do not know 100% for a fact if we perceive only ideas. The premise implies that there is no situation in which we perceive anything other than ideas. This may be true in for people such as Berkeley, but it is not necessarily true for everyone. The conclusion that ordinary objects are ideas is a conclusion that can be true in the sense that ordinary objects can be thought of as ideas. The statement that ordinary objects are ideas implies that ordinary objects are only ideas and not physical objects. If ordinary objects are ideas then how do ordinary objects still exist even when we are not thinking of the idea of that object?…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays