Prompt 3.

Explore the epistemological concepts of truth

and belief taking into account The Matrix. What would
the nature/essence of these concepts be if we consider
matrixes as a possibility?
Answer:
Epistemology, as we know theorizes on the platform when Truth and Belief harbor
in the same house, i.e., Knowledge. The Matrix, a movie starring Keanu Reeves
who portrayed the protagonist named Neo is take on the world every Human being
is used as a power-cell and is imprisoned into a virtual reality where he/she are not
aware the they are in a simulation. Let’s for a second assume that the human brain
functions similarly in the matrix as it does in real life, would the definitions of
Truth and Belief change? We can choose to believe either way because a belief can
be opinionated and is not bound by any constraints like objectiveness. What we
don’t know here is the truth. The truth is a term that defines itself and is completely
universal. When Neo took the red pill and escaped the matrix, He learned the Truth
about the Matrix and how every Human being was being deceived into living a
Virtual reality without them ever knowing about it. Before Neo escaped the matrix,
Morpheus did not tell him the complete truth or gave a justification of his beliefs.
But, due to Neo’s urge on seeking more knowledge about the way he felt when he
was in the Matrix lead him to the Truth eventually. If we were to ever gain this so
called “Knowledge” while living in a matrix would that ever be actual
“knowledge” (or objective knowledge per say) or it would just be a false belief.
Many a times we believe in something that might not be true or is not justified at
all, this is rather a simple definition of a false belief. A belief is also something we
can be forced upon and eventually bend someone’s subjective truth in thinking its
objective. This deception is exactly what happened to the subjects on the Matrix.
Lets say, Imagine a World where you are programmed to be obey only one party of
people that you never see and just hear to. They program you to just look at North
and nowhere else. You just see 1 bright star at the night, i.e., The North Star and it
makes you believe that it is the brightest star in the entire sky even if that’s not true
because you only watch in one direction. Let’s say one of the people manage to
escape this program and start to learn about the stars in different directions and
find out more truth and eventually discover even more Brighter stars like Sirius A.
The person who managed to escape learned that a Change in Perception can always
alter one’s inner truth which turns out to be rather a False Belief because the actual
truth turns out to be something else. The more we seek knowledge, the better the
perceptions we start to experience which is something that’s completely objective.
The same thing happened with Neo when he got out of the matrix, he had a rather
drastic change in perception. Truth, as said earlier is completely eternal, objective
and Universal and the higher the level of our perception is, the closer we are to the
Universal truth. The Matrix shows us a world where achieving a higher level of
perception while you are kept in a deceptive prison is something that is achieved
by the Protagonist. Realistic? We leave that to our beliefs for now. A lot of times
we have this alleged “gut-feeling” on what’s right and what’s wrong. If what is
happening all around us is for the boons or the bane but we hold no justifications to
it. Similarly, before meeting Morpheus, Neo would get these same feelings inside
his Virtual Reality over and over. His curiosity is what led him to choose the path
of knowledge and achieve a higher truth. If we were to ever live in such
simulations our perceptions would be lowered but our sense of thinking on these
concepts would remain rather the same it’s just that they would be complete false
beliefs and we won’t be aware about them. The Epistemological definitions of
truth and beliefs would remain rather different since our vision on life is lowered
and constantly questioned if we think differently inside of it. As said before, Truth
is Universal, Objective and completely just, belief is not constrained by the truth
and neither constrains it. Both are completely different aspects when they both
come together under the same roof, it becomes knowledge and its path always
showcases a higher and an altered viewpoint. The Evolution of Technology is
always progressive and there might be time that humans get to experience similar
simulations for fun activities, in which everything seems realistic (to the brain,
everything we experience taste and sense). In our current state of world, we are
making better AI’s day by day and there might come a day that we may create a
super intelligent AI which we might not be able to control ourselves. And it may
encapsulate and use humans for its own purpose to progress itself forward. This is
similar to the world of “The Matrix” and we can say it ourselves that its
consequences are not good. If given a condition similar to “The Matrix”, in which
a brain is heavily deluded despite not knowing about it. The truth will never
change but the beliefs would always be false since they are beliefs that took birth
in a simulation and not outside of it in which the brain was being completely
deceived. In these conditions, it is almost impossible for the human brain to know
about the “Truth” and hence it loses its essence in a subjective matter but not
objective, the opposite goes for the part about Human Beliefs since beliefs can
remain false and still feel subjectively correct. The only way for a regular human to
actually attain the correct knowledge of “Truth” is to walk the path of seeking
more knowledge and slowly but surely change his/her perception of their
“realities”.