Existentialism and phenomenology in Matrix

If you only see in Matrix a simple blockbuster combining chases and fight scenes, you are mistaken! If the trilogy did not invent anything, it has the great merit, through an entertainment film, to address the theories of Hegel, Plato, Descartes and many other philosophers...

One of the great philosophical concepts in Matrix is ​​ the importance of choice, one that engages the individual as well as mankind. It is impossible not to choose, refusing to choose is itself a choice, that of not making choices. The essence of human life is the cause and the consequence of his choices. As explained above, the matrix must take into account the free will of man so that he could accept the illusion that holds it in slavery. While ultimately there is really no choice, since the odds are contained in a fatal train that triggers a new cycle, however the architect is interested in letting Neo create a bit of a mess by testing the limits of the equations governing the virtual world. In short, we must let people express themselves, but in a well-partitioned space.

The existentialists believe that the human is finally free and stand aside of determinism or of sociological holism. If the matrix is predetermined by functional software, the architect realized that a utopian society, product of scientific calculations leading to harmony, putting humans on an equal footing, does not work because it encloses the individual in a straitjacket where it cannot choose; at least in this imperfect world he can have the illusion of choice. Finally, we had to recreate a realistic universe, inegalitarian, competitive, violent, product of human choices. In other words, if the matrix was a video game, say the first version was a platform game, like Super Mario, where he had to go from point A to point B by crushing the mushrooms, the new version is an open world, where every action generates a result producing other possibilities... From order must be born disorder and vice versa.

Phenomenology, which would be the source of existentialism calls to grasp the essence of an object to know its true nature. So we must admit all points of view imaginable to design an object in its fullness, and then extract the essence. So there is a direct parallel with the allegory of the cave*, existentialism attempts to get rid of a pragmatic vision, it is necessary to distance yourself to determine the infinity of possible and choose calmly.

* Allegory of the cavern:

From the first moments of the film, the allegory of Plato comes to mind. This is also the main theme of the first episode, the men chained to the Matrix, his back to reality with a false perception of the real and true knowledge. Thus, the cave represents the first reading of the human being; he perceives things as he sees them, without ever questioning them. This is what Morpheus explains to Neo, making a rough reference to Alice in Wonderland. Awakened people often reject the truth when it is exposed to them; some are not ready to hear this version of things. This is also why the agents can so easily be embodied in any individual, as they cling to their perception of reality as to its shell rock, nothing else seems conceivable to them. For Plato, therefore access to knowledge required a hard effort, an initiatory journey fraught with pitfalls to decipher the truth. Indeed habits usually create certainties that make us blind and prevent any critical thinking on the environment in which we operate. The ascent is then used to move the material world, the intelligible world.

Descartes pushed the metaphor a little further, speaking of the denial of reality. It stipulates that to remain in a material world is much more comfortable than question your habits and the reassuring forms surrounding us. From a contemporary perspective, Matrix questions us about the ubiquity of the image, the monopoly of the society of the spectacle, the digital age, which interfered in every corner of our modern world and which amend inexorably our perception of reality and the influence we can have in it, just as was the religion.

Freedom in existentialism is to admit that there is neither moral nor dogma or absolute truth. The truth will be built for each, through their choices and paths. Determinism does not exist for Sartre, because what is truth is that the individual defines as truth (like Kierkegaard). Thus the Oracle never really responds to Neo when the latter questioned him and the architect lets Neo choose between condemning humanity and starting the reload opting for the status quo.

Since this is a characteristic of humans, the Neo anomaly, is empowered to make its own choices. Smith, who is his exact opposite, also became a being of choice, it is free to destroy the matrix, and nothing prevents him except Neo, also being of choice, but whose purpose is contrary, and by contrast, both possibilities (destruction of the human race by Smith and emancipation of the human race by Neo) neutralize and keep things in the state, maintaining the status quo.

Thus humans are destined to serve the machines forever. But if we reverse the problem, we see that without humans, machines cannot function. This refers us directly to the master-slave dialectic of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.

Zion adviser also admits in a conversation with Neo that without humans there would be no machines and no human without machines to operate Zion. In Zion, the machines are run by humans, outside humans are the ones alienated to the machines.

The dialectic of Hegel insinuated that the slave, transforming nature, accesses the object as it transforms himself through work, while the master, winning directly the property, remains passive and thus outside the world. By performing the task instead of the master, the slave dominates the master, because without the slave, the master doesn’t know how to get the desired object, so he’s unable to transform nature. Humans and machines in Matrix are each other’s masters and slaves. The Matrix offers to the human illusion of control, he is the slave but believes himself to be the master, however, if the machine didn’t work so that humans evolved in a context that makes it so happy and productive, then it cannot exist, so it is also dominated by its requirements and therefore his slaves, then entering a relationship of equality. The master becomes the slave of the slave.