Abstract:

The Matrix, a film by Wachowski brothers, adapts a number of new and ancient philosophies
about the truth behind reality. Moreover, the central framework of the film is adapted from
“Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.” The film reflects and mirror the philosophy by Plato almost exactly
in structure. The theory is about prisoners who have been chained in a cave since their childhood
and thus facing just a wall. Throughout the wall there shadows of different shape of animals and
plants and a sound of fire that echoes at the back of the prisoners. Therefore, they believe that
this is only reality they know, though they only envision shadow of images. One of the captives
will be released, will leave the cave and will be the first to be blinded by the light, and therefore,
he will realize that what he saw before was not the reality. The same philosophy is mirrored in
the movie “The Matrix.” Throughout the move, the main character, Neo is trapped in a false
reality created by a computer system. The program was created by machines, that took over the
planet. While in Plato’s Allegory of Cave, prisoner understand the reality of the cave and the real-
reality is outside the Cave. Furthermore, the movie adapts the philosophy of dark cave, where
captives are not physically bound, but mentally. The believe that they are free, though they are
not free. Moreover, this believe prevent them from doing anything about their imprisonment.
And eventually, that conclude the central theme in both Plato’s and The Matrix is the idea and
reality of human’s limitation of knowledge. Another movie “Inception” also reflect the false
reality, dual reality which is the main concept of reality. In the movie inception, people also get
trapped by false reality in the dreamscapes. Furthermore, another philosopher, and the student
of Plato, Aristotle questioned that, “Are Human Free?” Many philosophers think we are all free,
but others argue against this. One of the main topics concerning this question is free will.
Apparently there is free will in any decision we take. Yet there are good and bad decisions. In
order for a person to exercise free will, he needs to be under his own control. Metaphysics is the
concept given by Aristotle. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that studies the ultimate
structure and constitution of reality. The film Matrix has a lot concepts regarding metaphysics.
The first concept is, “Is the world real or not?” Clearly on the film there are two alternate worlds:
the matrix and the real world. This make us question wether what we see is real or just
programmed. Do we really exist or are we fake? Another concept that we found in the matrix is
destiny. Neo sets on with Morpheus to destroy the matrix. Along the way Morpheus tells him
that he was destined to destroy the matrix. Here we see that clearly some part of Neo is
controlled by his destiny. He was destined to destroy the matrix. One concept also in the Matrix is
wether we can be free. This can be seen by the way the story itself is created. First the humans
are under the control of the aliens, but when that ends they are in control of other people. For
example: government. This means also that even before the war people were no free and
therefore did not have free will. Reality is not as obvious in the Matrix, which embraces people to
question the concreteness of reality.