The Matrix Wants You!

Okay, before I go ranting - Spoiler Warning if you haven't seen The Matrix: Revolutions. Then again, with the high first weekend and then 66 percent drop off at the box office, is there anyone who didn't see it?

Anyways, after a week of letting the movie stew in the back of my meat-brain, I started having some interesting ideas. Actually, I woke up from a Matrix-themed dream (only the second one ever, go figure) and had some thoughts about the nature of the "new" Matrix shown at the end of the movie. Just in case you've not seen the movie but want to keep reading, here's the run-down. Neo sacrificed himself in order a)to save the Matrix from the viral agent Smith, b) to save the lives of the humans infected by said-same Smith, and c) to broker a peace with the Machines and thereby save Zion. All he had to do was fight Smith to the edge of death, let Smith infect him, and then join with the Source (machine database evermind server thing) after he was infected. He dies (apparently), the Matrix recompiles, the machines leave Zion, and the last scene has the Oracle and the Architect overlooking a beautiful, more colorful, reborn Matrix simulation. At least that's how I saw it.

Now the interesting thing at the end of the movie is that they imply that folks who want to leave the Matrix will be allowed to. So that has me thinking several thoughts. First - does that mean that they know the Matrix is "The Matrix?" Did Neo somehow make them aware of their situation so that they can make the choice to stay or go? Or will things run as before, with people in Zion allowed to enter and free the enlightened members of the human race? And if you chose to leave, can you chose to go back? And how many people can the Machines free until the Power Plants are no longer efficient? It seems to me that they still need the power the people provide. I can see it now - a massive PR campaign designed to keep you in the Matrix. The Matrix becomes a computerized Disney World, a nicer world than the gritty, grimy, sweating realtity of Zion or the dark, bleak, lifeless surface of the Earth. Free food, free boarding - all you need to do is give up reality.

In one of the philosophy books to spring up around the first Matrix movie there was an interesting essay about the ethics of choosing to stay in or go back to the Matrix, ala Cypher's betrayal. The essay positted, as I remember it, the idea that it is inherently unethical (and hence evil) to remain strapped to the Power Plant. I'm going to butcher the arguement, but I believe it said that to live in or choose a false life is wrong, because the pursuit of truth is integral to living an ethical life. But all those people in the Matrix simply can't choose to leave - there seems to be no ecosystem to support them anywhere on the planet. I mean, it all looks like Detroit on a dark fall night! So if they made the "ethical" choice, they'd be signing a mass suicide order. Of course, the machines also might get pissed off at this point, having lost their batteries, but that's another essay (or at least another paragraph). So do they REALLY have a choice?

And what about our scruffy friends in Zion? Can they continue to waltz in and out of the Matrix freeing people, screwing up physics, and living like dark superheroes? I mean, what's the Machine world got to gain from letting these people in? They just leech off the power and use resources without contributing anything. Or do you find yourself making a Matrix Customs agency that folks can use to come in and visit, perhaps to be recruited to join into the Matrix? I mean, don't you think some people might have gotten tired of the whole living-underground-and-struggling scene? Isn't the Matrix the ultimate welfare systerm? All they want is your body heat, after all. And besides, now you have a colony of computer hackers - can you really find a way to keep them out?

On a side note, another interesting idea to arise out of the last two Matrix films is that the machines themselves aren't so happy with their own lives. First, you start meeting characters that refuse to be deleted and use the Matrix as a virtual no-man's zone where they can continue existing. Sure, most of these seem evil, but at that point all machines (and here I mean both machines and virtual AI entities) seem evil. Then at the start of the newest movie, you meet the sweetest little Indian girl, the product of two Indian AI programs that were forbidden to reproduce. They're sending the girl into the Matrix to survive, for she has no future in the Machine World. Now these seem like very nice programs just trying to have a little home life - not such a big jump when you realize that the AI's are just like natural intelligent entities and thus probably want the same general goals (health, happiness, fulfillment, and the continuance of genes/code). So now the Matrix is not only the prison designed for the human race but also a virtual Casablanca, where bad programs can go to hide. Seems like the machines want the same freedom of choice that the humans want. In fact, the Machine world seems to have a slow epidemic of "choice," ranging from the cute Indian family and the evil Merovigian to the Oracle and her assistant Seraph. I mean, isn't that really what Neo died for - the ability to choose? In that way, isn't he a Machine savior as well as a human one?

So that's my thoughts. I'm sure I'll have more (you know me, I never shut up), but I'll just stop for now and let it stew...