The Matrix

In the film The Matrix viewers are introduced to a world which seems real to those in it, but is really nothing more than a computer generated illusion. This idea brings forth the question: if someone were to be placed in the matrix, would they know they were inside? In considering this question we must make some observations about our everyday lives and then attempt to apply them to the situation. For an example, take a person who has become heavily intoxicated by some drug or poison. To the person who is intoxicated they may find that life is going just fine and even feel as though they are passing intelligent thoughts through their mind and coming to intelligent conclusions. However, to the outside world the intoxicated individual is babbling gibberish and makes little sense. Does the one who is intoxicated realize an outside world even exists? No, the thought that he may be somewhere else never crosses his mind. When we look at something in our world and refer to it with a name we have made a connection between the object and the name. How would it be possible to make a connection between worlds? How would it be possible for us to recognize objects we have never seen and successfully classify them? Our minds are not capable of realizing that we are trapped in a matrix. In the matrix what a person calls an object refers to that computer generated object, they have no idea of anything else-- no concept of the same object not computer generated. Much like the Allegory of The Cave if we are taught an object is called something, a certain shadow a certain name-- then we find that to be something concrete in our world. We have no desire or potential to question another world. The prisoners in the cave did not spend time dreaming of something completely different from what they knew. They had no thoughts that they were perhaps trapped in a cave, hidden away from a "real world". Our scope of thought is just that of the prisoners in the cave.