Saturday, September 22, 2012

The Blue Pill or the Red Pill?

One of the most famous movies of all time, The Matrix, is one of my favorites.Not just because it is innovative and presents completely new thoughts, but because it leaves the audience thinking for a while.

The main character, Neo, is offered a choice: either to see what the Matrix is and to learn what exactly the world he's living in is, or to go on with his life. When you think about it, we face similar questions everyday, even though they may be at smaller scales. When the newspaper is sitting on the table while you are eating breakfast, you may choose to read it and get to know more about the world you're living in and about other people, or you may choose not to.

I cannot say that I am a supporter of the quote "Ignorance is bliss", which is exactly what Cypher says to an Agent, when Cypher says to him that he wants to go back to sleep and keep on living in the Matrix. Well, sometimes not knowing something may make you feel better, but in the long run, that forgotten fact that you neglected a long time ago may come back and haunt you.

Whether it was intended or not, the movie The Matrix is very similar to Plato's Allegory of the Cave. The people living in the Matrix are the ones chained up in the cave, the person who got out of the cave is Morpheus, going back into the cave, trying to free some more people, and the cave is The Matrix, in which everyone is actually living in a made-up world, being told what to feel and what to think.

One cannot help but wonder whether we may actually be living in a similar simulated world, after all, we cannot know if we are or not.  Watching The Matrix just gets the wheels  in your head turning, and you face the question you face again and again, whether to keep thinking and searching for the answers or not to, whether to take the blue pill or the red pill.

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