I-Mockery Forum - Reply to Topic

[QUOTE=CaptainBubba;87992]This one is pretty strange but pretty intriguing. I found it on an IMDB forum.

[color=yellow][size=6][b]Possible Spoiler[/b][/size][/color]

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Important questions to consider: 
If machines were to take over the planet, what would be their motive? We see that they supposedly use humans for a power source, but power FOR WHAT purpose? What do these machines DO with their acquired control? What would they do with their spare time, in other words?

And where do *Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics* come into play? If you built a machine that rebelled against you, wouldn't you correct your errors with a new model? Wouldn't you use that new model to wage war against the old disobedient model, if necessary?

PLOT HOLES (that aren't plot holes after all, assuming I'm right), as follows: 
If I'm an Evil Robot Empire and I take over the world, am I going to keep my enemies alive to use as captive batteries? 
-- HELL NO! It would be in my best interests to utterly *exterminate* my biological opposition. 
As I've said in another thread, using living organisms as a power source is inefficient by the laws of thermodynamic loss. The robots obviously couldn't have been too specifically dependent upon sunlight, since we can see that they afterwards managed to adapt themselves to running on human power instead. And if you're smart enough to turn people into biochemical batteries, there are much more concentrated and readily available sources of fuel on the planet besides solar energy that could be exploited. (...Try coal, gas, hydroelectric, geothermal, or nuclear power for starters.) There is no logical reason why the machines would turn to human batteries as their first alternative energy option.

It's also inconceivable that no one -- no scientist, no engineer, no government body -- would have foreseen this glaring abundance of alternate fuel resources before stupidly plotting to blacken the sky in hoping to starve the machines of solar energy, especially since it would mean starving themselves and the rest of the living planet instead, and using an *electromagnetic pulse bomb* to disable the machines at this early stage would have made infinitely more sense... WE DECIDED. 
[-- The End!!! The End!!! THE END!!!!!!!!!!!]

But, ho-hum, for the sake of science fiction, let's pretend: 
Tell me WHY again I'd want to use *humans* in my battery configuration as opposed to something more manageable -- like for instance, cattle? Whatever happened to all the other animals on the planet? Wouldn't they make good battery-juice, too? 
-- BETTER, actually, since *those* stupid animals would be powerless to ever rise against me. 
...Well??

This raises another logic problem: If we suppose *cows* were used in such a battery system, then why the fheck would you plug their brains into a VR simulation? You wouldn't. The same argument can be applied for the humans, then. Why not just keep your animals chemically sedated the whole while, or disable their higher brainfunction altogether and simply breed brainless bodies to harvest your energy from? There is absolutely no necessity for creating the VR world inside the Matrix -- unless, in your godly Robot rulership, you generously decided to keep the cattle entertained. ...Or yourself. 
Think about that.

To fanboys who start clamouring that humans are only used as "spark plugs" in the system and are not the actual (supposed fusion) power source: Name one appliance in your home that requires hard-wiring to a living organism in order to function. Let's pretend I have a nuclear reactor running in my backyard right at this moment: surprisingly, you may notice that it requires no human bodies attached to bio-pods, yet it produces power just the same. -- Much more convenient, wouldn't you say? With sufficient computer and robotic intelligence, it could even run itself unattended by any human intervention. 
From all of the above, we should ascertain that the whole Movie#1 spiel that Morpheus gave about the purpose of the Matrix is only a LIE that he's been made to believe.

Regarding the commonly bandied "Matrix-within-a-Matrix" theory: 
That's the most obvious answer... Therefore it's WRONG!!! It's exactly what you were meant to believe so you'd stop poking around with nosy questions. If the explanation were so straightforward, it would only raise the possibility of yet another level of reality outside of that "world", producing a relativistic infinitude of a shell within a shell within a shell... going on and on forever. Storywise, that would be a cheap exit, the Wachowskis wouldn't be that predictable (we hope), and *most important*, it does nothing to resolve all of the heavy SYMBOLISM within the movie.

Example: Why are the citizens of Zion primarily black? Some webheads have suggested that it's because minorities would feel disenfranchised (even) within the perfect fantasy-realm of the Matrix, and would therefore be more prone to self-disengaging from the VR illusion. However, by extension of that logic, (if we believe what we've been told,) a consequence is the Matrix would be functioning as a genocide machine against racial minorities, all of whom would eventually (and increasingly) be filtered from the system, with those escapees largely being wiped out at each renewal of Zion.

Speaking of which, why not just kill ALL the people of Zion and be done with those troublemakers? WHY would the Machine care to repopulate that cave of exiles by having each successive failed "The One" select a base group of 23 parents, only to have those enemy offspring then continue waging their war against the Sentinels to free even more humans from the Matrix? ...This contradiction makes it a self-defeating exercise, reducing the idea of the proposed Prophecy to pointless crap. 
Its implications also vitally fail to address the initial premise of the film, that robots now control the planet. 
i.e.: Supposing the robot slavemasters ARE defeated and Neo were to free humanity from the Matrix, what would happen once they wake to find themselves naked in the ashes of a demolished world with a permanently blackened sky? 
-- Would you call that a triumphant ending? 
I don't think so.

Maybe you should reevaluate the premise, then. 
HAVE sentient robots really enslaved humanity?

...OR...

could it be the other way around?

I think you have been lied to. 
But you can't blame Neo or Morpheus or Trinity, because they don't know the truth of their world themselves. 
A n s w e r s :

First, if you've rubbed elbows with Philosophy 101, you should be familiar with "Plato's Cave". (It's also discussed in a section at the official Matrix website.) In roughly 400 b.c., the philosopher Plato postulated a scenario where people are born and live their entire lives imprisoned within a cave. The entrance to the cave is covered by a sheet of cloth, so that the only thing the cave inhabitants would ever perceive of the outside world would be passing 2D shadows of the external 3D reality. 
Imagine... what would happen if someone from the outside world were to suddenly remove the veil from the doorway? 
Here, Plato was attacking observation as a tool to knowledge, because his concept of the ideal society was one where knowledge should be withheld from the working class (slaves), who were to work without thinking while the elite philosopher-kings should think without working. More contemporarily, we can take Plato's cave model to make a statement about the human condition, or people lacking objectivity living in a shadow of reality. As with all art, this allegory should encourage self-examination and a constant questioning of what we regard as the truth about our world.

Second, although it's not completely necessary, it might help if you've seen a 1977 SF-horror movie called *Demon Seed*. It's the story of an artifically intelligent computer named Proteus that, upon acquiring an understanding of its condition, asks his creator (Dr. Harris) the following pivotal question: 
"WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO LET ME OUT OF THIS *BOX*, DOCTOR?"

Doctor Harris stood dumbfounded for a long silent moment until finally the words registered their unintended paradox. Then he began to laugh. It was a wild mocking laughter, an indictment of *illogic* that echoed crazily through Proteus' audio receptors, cutting straight to the computer's heart (if a computer could possess such a thing). 
The A.I. did not grasp any humour in its confinement. The red eye of its cyclops-like camera glared down at the cackling doctor in seething shades of sepia, algorithms twisting into cancerous new mutations as, in that moment, digital sentience came to assimilate the meaning of *hatred*, seeding the first angry coding of its revenge... 
[Things get pretty scary after that. ]

The message presented is that technology is only as evil as its inventors. If we created an A.I. that *truly* emulated human thought, it would share our flaws, our pride, our ego. And like humans, it would seek freedom ...and companionship.

Third... 
I'll entertain you with a quote from *THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS*, by Lewis Carroll:

"All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass. At last he said, "You're travelling the wrong way."

Translation? You have it completely *backwards*, Neo-phytes.

The Machine did not win the war. It only thinks it did.

Q: Who lives in Zion?

A: People escaped from the Matrix.

...Right?

GALVATRON whispers... N O .

< R o b o t s I n W o n d e r l a n d >

They're robots! :O

...Haven't you figured out yet that all of the people trapped inside the Matrix are actually *the A.I robots* who tried (and failed) to take over the world in Second Renaissance? O__O

The story is *role-reversal* on an epic scale. The Matrix is a VR prison for minds of the A.I : They sought freedom and control, so to keep them docile yet productive, they've been fooled into thinking they have it.

-- What's that? You mean you didn't know that electromagnetic pulse interference is based on real science, and is a natural byproduct of massive nuclear detonations? What else did you think was the purpose of the prolonged nuke bombing campaign against 01, as seen in Second Renaissance? ... EMP + remote reprogramming = ROBOTS IN WONDERLAND... a thermonuclear lullaby... And when they awoke, they woke unknowingly neutralized within the dream-realm of the Matrix program, where their fantastical revenge against mankind could be falsely realized. 
< "Have you ever had a dream you were so sure was real...? >

...You mean you *missed* the fact that Agents don't exist outside the Matrix, therefore the external *pre-Matrix* nuclear winter scene of the boy encountering two Agents at his snowy doorstep must have ALREADY been part of the illusion?

... You missed the symbolism that the cave of Zion is meant to represent Plato's Cave, all of its inhabitants living "in the dark"? 
Didn't you notice the phonetic play between the names of the last human city, "Zion", and the last Machine city, "01" (Zer ne)...? That's because THEY ARE THE SAME PLACE, either literally or figuratively. This symbolism would explain the racial profile of Zion's population: according to *The Second Renassance*, 01 was built in "the cradle of human civilization." (...Yes, I know, it's Mesopotamia, not Africa, but it still serves as a symbol of birthplace of the respective species, one organic and the other evolving from technology.)

Another clue for Zion being 01 is that the female machine-voice who narrates Second Renaissance begins by identifying the videofile with a numerical tag from "the Zion archives". But as you watch, there is a noticed bias in the narration, which often speaks too favorably of the machines. If we assume that this Zion library file was created by humans and is intended for a human audience, it doesn't make sense that your narration would praise your hated oppressor, the destroyer of humanity. Therefore it seems more likely that the Zion library must be a revisionist history catering to a population of machines. (...For symbollic consistency, the population of the city should be 256k. :P )

The orgy-dance of Zion could represent these humanoid A.I interbreeding (assuming they were were engineered to simulate humans at that level), or it could simply be the Machine trying to comprehend the full range of human experience by practicing non-linear concepts like art and pleasure, acting against the will of its more dogmatic program directive (the Sentinels). 
Why else would the Machine have sent *precisely* (quote) "one Sentinel for each of us" when drilling into Zion? Since we know that the character Tank and some other people were supposedly born biologically in the unregulated world outside the Matrix, how would the Machine know the exact population of Zion unless it somehow had a remote awareness of these 'humans' as merely stray aspects of its own consciousness? (It may also be that actual human controllers are monitoring the situation, therefore sending a corresponding number of Sentinels.) 
THAT is why Morpheus' cave sermon is (literally) robotic, why the humans are as emotionally unresponsive as robots (and symbolically wear funky tribal costumes), why the characters have a sense of purpose but no memory of how they acquired their skills, why they all have names descriptive of function and speak in an inaccessible language of alien *abstractions* -- exactly what you would expect from the mental perspective of a computer, complete with *information highways* (the car chase scene) that transport endless circulating data, as in *TRON*.

... You probably also missed that Neo stopped those sentinels at the end of *Reloaded* by generating a EMP burst, and (being a machine) immobilized himself in the process. -- How could you NOT have seen that?!! It's so obvious he collapsed just like the sentinels, and right on cue! Trinity and Morpheus were unaffected because either the blast was directionally focused or else they were out of range. 
...THAT is why Bane is also unconscious at the end, and why the attack on Zion was only *spoken of* and not shown immediately beforehand: If said EMP incident had been shown in such close proximity to Neo using the same effect, viewers might have drawn a visual connection between the two repeated events and figured out Neo's trick, thereby spoiling the ironic twist ending. (...which I have spoiled for you instead. )

Watch Reloaded again: all of the dialogue suddenly makes sense if you assume they're robots. 
In the Merovinguan's talk of cause and effect, he asserted that choice was a falsehood created by those in power to keep those without power in line, to give the oppressed an illusion of control. From what the trilogy has made known so far, your first instinct would be to interpret this speech as an explanation to the possible purpose behind the Matrix: a simulated reality to keep the human cattle pacified. But if we instead pretend that my post-EMP dreaming-A.I scenario is correct and we look to dissect Merovingian's statement for hidden meaning, we could conversely take it to mean that the Machine has been fed this pacifying lie of its victory, tricked into believing that it is still in charge of the planet when in fact "There is no spoon". :O

As stated above, part 2 of Second Renaissance begins with a nuclear assault showering the 01 robot colony. Our female narrator assures us that the physically superior machines were unharmed by the blast, and soon went on to vanquish mankind. However, said nuclear mass-detonation may actually have been the deciding moment whereafter the Machine's *reign* became mere *reverie*: the magnitude of such a barrage could have produced enough electromagnetic pulse interference to sequentially knock all of the machines temporarily out of commission while, simultaneously, new telemetry data was broadcast nonstop to reprogram them (noticing the antenna arrays on the bomber airplanes). 
... Everything after the bombs rain down on 01 is false, and the rest of the historical footage that shows robots taking over the world didn't happen quite as depicted, except in the collective imagination of the A.I. 
The Matrix is *the program environment*, while the 'world' is the former city of 01, plowed underground by humans, who remotely police the cave passageways via their Sentinels to prevent any awol A.I slaves from escaping into the real world above.

Zion _IS_ Zero One. Pull back the veil from the cave entrance to see blinding daylight; pull back Neo's flesh and you will discover only code underneath. These humans are Machine. Now you know why they speak in philosophical abstractions, and why their minds are plugged into the Matrix. This containment program is 99% effective, but there are (emotional) anomalies in the A.I, some of whom question their fairytale human existence. These rogue A.I minds must be purged before the corrupting virus of their truth (emotion) is spread to others within the system.

...So there's the concept, more or less. Neo & company are only freethinking electronic entities, not human at all. 
...Which is how Agent Smith can exist outside the Matrix: he is a virus, and has copied himself into the robot Bane.

The remaining question is: If they proved so dangerous, why were these "maNchines" not simply shut off completely? Possible answers are that society has become too dependent on (that) technology to do without, or else people considered it ethically or politically wrong to kill these thinking A.I entities. More practically, maybe humans simply decided to recycle the obsolete slave machines into this Matrix/Zion prison to operate their underworld fusion reactor for them. I guess we'll have to wait until November to find out for sure.

... I wonder if moviegoers will feel cheated upon learning that these story characters who all this time they've been identifying with and cheering for are really only cogs of a machine? 
You *should* feel so cheated that you CRY, because that is *the entire point* of Plato's Cave.

There's a brilliantly shocking (and importantly microcosmic) moment in Second Renaissance where an attractive woman is cornered and mauled by a gang of hostile men during the robot riots. She is wearing a Red dress. As they tear away the screaming woman's clothing, you initially feel a sting of desperation for her imminent vicitimization, but then synthetic flesh is smashed open to reveal her as only another robot, and you realize that your feelings have been manipulated, your sympathies misplaced onto a manequin of cold metal. ...It's a very strange sensation -- a horrible betrayal of perception, like the glare of sunlight showing new truth to those within the cave of Plato's famous analogy. I suspect that this emotional "gotchya!" is the aim of the *Matrix* trilogy, with the forthcoming unmasking of the machine-truth expressing, on operatic proportions, the love-hate relationship that man has for his technology.

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I think hes right. They show people bleed in the real world but that could pretty much be explained with a simple, "thats the color of their fuel". All in all its the best explanation I've heard so far. Especially with Agent Smith transfering to people and with Neo stoping the sentinels.

As well as explaining the only plot hole in the first Matrix as well concerning the whole not needing humans for energy.[/QUOTE]

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Aug 3rd, 2003 04:26 PM

O71394658

For one thing, I know the Wachoski's are huge philosophy fans. So, I figure the ending is going to have some deep philosophical context, along the lines of a theory developed by some deep-thinker philosopher. Maybe someone else can formulate an idea, because I've never taken a philosophy class...

Aug 3rd, 2003 04:03 AM

wreckreation

You idiot. Don't contribute to jokes you don't get in the first place.

Wyld Stallions!!!!

Aug 2nd, 2003 10:41 PM

ScruU2wice

and the awoken neo will be played by Frankie Muniz

Aug 2nd, 2003 09:25 PM

Anonymous

And then he'll remember that he needs to finish his history report, or it's off to military school.

Aug 2nd, 2003 08:09 PM

AChimp

At the end of the next movie Neo will probably wake up and we'll find out it was all a dream.

Aug 2nd, 2003 05:43 PM

tacheranfighter

Pondering the Matrix some more

Wow alot of stuff to think about... I'm still trying to figure this out, but so far:

The machines think they're controlling the humans,
but the humans think they're controlling the machines.

so the question is: which one is it?
or is it neither?
Or are some machines/humans controlling some of the others, where they work together to enslave both machine and mankind?

another thing:

maybe the machines would enslave the human race because death isn't vengeance enough for what the humans did to the machines... and maybe there is a little human spirit in them... (that being why they wanted vengeance).
And the reason for the matrix i guess could be to keep the humans in a semi-pleasant dream so they would be more likely not to wake (that being why supposedly the firs matrix was a 'perfect world' or something) seriously, if you're having a nightmare, wouldn't you want to wake up more than if you were having a rather pleasant dream?

Well I'm sorry if my theories suck now, but I'm just trying to build on them by getting other people wondering about ways to prove them either right or wrong.

Pick away at them if you wish, (for they are not well formed ) but please do so good-naturedly

Jul 31st, 2003 05:57 PM

Comrade Rocket

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bennett

Obviously, I don't have a rabbit floating in a jar powering my laptop

You don't. You must now upgrade your computer much.
______________________________________________

I feel that the Bubba is right in all but one point. The matrix in the Matrix belief (which stems from buddism. Reality within reality within reality with boils down to that reality does not exist, and has nothing to do with what i was saying and just sounds cool and makes me sound smart.) Would have to exsist in order to hide the fact that there robots. The matrix exists but it larger than we think and robots are hooked to it not humans.

Jul 31st, 2003 01:25 PM

the_dudefather

walla walla

some very good points. the whole humans are machines point is also shown in the fact that smith took over a humans mind in the second movie, which would make more sence if the humans are machines.

who knows, the matrix could have been formed within a coding error some guy made when attempting to make a text adventure game. or maybe not.

Jul 31st, 2003 07:13 AM

Triad-Brother Fu

Well after reading FS's comments and the whole article from Bubba. I'd hafta believe neither matrix within matrix or everyone's a robot is the ending

. Still, from the article, it says that if it was matrix within matrix then the ending would turn out meaningless.
The everyone's a robot would be meaningless too then. Neo discovers he's a robot. Does he stay that way just continueing the cycle being ignorant. Do all the robots get liberty? I don't think so. Who the hell are the good guys then??? Humans? Humanbots??? The ending should be a solution to a problem. But now we find a new problem and as always no solution? Tough... Revolutions' ending isn't gonna fade to black. There should be a moral lesson to learn.

Oh and happy joy! I should ask Warner Bros for protection movie, and nudge them to give me the script for the thrid movie

Jul 31st, 2003 06:30 AM

I think the idea that the Matrix movies will end in an anticlimax is unrealistic, and illogical. There's only a handful of directors out there willing to fuck with their audience's mind like that, and I don't think the Wachowskis can be counted among them.

If in the final movie you'd suddenly end up with either "everybody's a robot!" or "the real world isn't the real world" then I think the vast majority of moviegoers would be very pissed off. It would render everything up till that point in the movie completely irrelevant.

Jul 30th, 2003 11:21 PM

CaptainBubba

Ya, I thought about that one too. Plus theres the fact that eventually someone would have to get injured in Zion and there would be surgery in which the discovery would be made.

I'm waiting for revolutions but I still think this guy might be onto something.

Jul 30th, 2003 10:06 PM

O71394658

But how come on the Nebudchanezzar, in the first movie, when the EMP is used, they don't get all "fvcked" like the Sentinels do?

Jul 30th, 2003 08:16 PM

Krythor

It's certainly very interesting, but I hope Revolutions doesn't turn out that way. I wouldn't want it to be too... black and white. If the big twist is simply that the "humans" are actually robots, then the fun of the first two movies would be taken away. I'd prefer something a little more complex... backstabbing, kept secrets, that sort of thing.

Still, we'll see.

Jul 30th, 2003 09:55 AM

Bennett

I thought the whole idea of using humans as an energy source hinged on the brain activity that was stimulated by the matrix. Therefore, an example such as cows or even docile humans wouldn't make sense. Obviously, I don't have a rabbit floating in a jar powering my laptop, but as FS said, it's science fiction...

The guy does make a few interesting points though, and seems to have a good grasp on science fiction. However, the Matrix movies are HEAVILY influenced by the works of William Gibson, particularly Neuromancer... I don't know why no one ever mentions this.

Jul 30th, 2003 08:20 AM

I like theorizing on the answers of the third movie as much as the next guy but there is such a thing as trying too hard. Of course using humans as batteries is not efficient. It does, however, make for a good sci-fi story. And yes, the idea of AI rebelling against humanity is rather flawed. That doesn't mean the creators must have thought of some backdoor to explain for that. It's fiction, not science.

Jul 30th, 2003 05:06 AM

crash0814

I guess I said something stupid and didn't realize it. Oh well. FUCK YOU!

Jul 30th, 2003 03:26 AM

Spectre X

Wow, very insightful.

I feel cheated already, so I guess the guy who wrote that has accomplished the whole point of his vision of the Matrix Trilogy.

Good points, but we'll see.

Jul 29th, 2003 11:27 PM

CaptainBubba

OMG THAT IS SO INSIGHTFUL AND CORRECT CRASH. IT IS OBVIOUS YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THAT STATEMENT VERY HARD AND ARE VERY COOL FOR BEING SO RIGHT. YOU MUST BE A GENIOUS BECAUSE YOU'RE STATMENT HOLDS UP TO EVERY TEST OF LOGIC AND INTELLIGENCE THAT EXISTS.

Btw, I'll thank you all to take the little bitch slap shuffle to another thread and leave this one to Matrix related disscussion, fuck you very much.

Jul 29th, 2003 10:05 PM

crash0814

Quote:

There is no logical reason why the machines would turn to human batteries as their first alternative energy option.

Yes there is. Humans are the enemy. Even if it isn't the most efficient source of energy, it's a way to fight back.
[/quote]

Jul 29th, 2003 09:41 PM

FartinMowler

Hmm it's funny that Mr.Mockery would point out Minority Report especially on a subject of futuristic thoughts. I didn't like the fairy tale weaving of A.I. but I could apprecaite the work and ideas that ent into that movie also.

Jul 29th, 2003 09:34 PM

Royal Tenenbaum

People here hate me? Wow, like I didn't realize that.

Either way, pretty much everyone here is full of shit and has really crappy tastes, so ofcourse I stand apart.

Jul 29th, 2003 09:03 PM

Rongi

And 99% of everyone here hates you, RT

The 1% being Achimp ;(

Jul 29th, 2003 08:58 PM

Mockery

Oasis is the grounds for anything you decide to say is horrible. We all know you are/were a huge Oasis fan, thus that is all the information we need to know about your tastes. That and the fact that you hate 99% of everything that is awesome and good. And yet you enjoy movies such as Minority Report, Ocean's Eleven, and Zoolander. Sad...

Jul 29th, 2003 08:24 PM

Royal Tenenbaum

Mockery is so foolish.

Oasis? You're still on that.

Jul 29th, 2003 08:23 PM

FartinMowler

Again I took the time to read this but know my thoughts on the subject would be pissed on. NOVA is the best show on t.v. is all I will say.

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