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Dr. Who and The Matrix
Topic Started: Jun 3 2012, 08:30 AM (469 Views)
caltrek
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Lieutenant Commander
I first encountered in fiction the idea of the matrix in an old Tom Baker episode of Dr. Who. In what was actually a short series of episodes, the Doctor enters into a matrix to do battle with an old nemesis, who was also a time lord. Here, the matrix was an invention of the time lords, and his nemesis had some how entered the matrix and posed a threat to its functioning and indirectly to time lord society through his invasion.

I was reminded of this episode yesterday by an interview conducted by Bill Moyers on PBS. In it, the guest mentions the matrix as a marvelous metaphor for the idea of a socially constructed reality. The idea being that we all collaborate with each other to construct a social reality by which we make sense of the world. This constructed reality is needed so that we can understand our place in the world. Bearings are needed so that we can move forward in our lives, being part of a greater whole while understanding what our role night be in that greater whole. So the metaphor of our minds being plugged into a machine in which we participate in the construction of the reality we encounter in that machine can be useful.

In philosophy, the idea of the matrix can be invoked in exploring the problem of how do we know. The matrix illustrates that the reality we find ourselves in may in fact be very different that the reality that we perceive. Thanks to modern science, we are now aware of x-rays and of the possibility of perceiving in the infrared. So we see that our senses only give us a slice of the reality in which we are embedded. That given a different set of senses, we might very well perceive reality in an entirely different way.

We are also as a species now begining to develop an idea that there exists dark matter and dark energy. Some have even speculated that there may be beings who reside on these planes of existence, almost entirely imperceptable to us and yet in some ways the equivalent of only a few inches from our noses. Many a ghost story and science fiction ideas are based on similar such notions, as well as upon related notions of alternative realities and parallel universes. Even the biblical writings concerning Jesus seem to hint at such possibilities of a higher plane of existence in some spiritual form that seems to exist in some parallel reality.

Conventional wisdom rejects the notion of inteligences populating these alternative realities. Perhaps conventional wisdom is correct. Perhaps it is all a construction of our overly active imagination, confused as we some times are in distinguishing dream states from our normal waking state. Yet, even our conventional reality is understood through socially contructed lenses in which the world is described through a language that those in our culture share. Much of our lives are spent memorizing and applying such linguistic calssifications and categorizations. Life sometimes seems to be a constant struggle to refine our understandings and argue about their implications. The mere act of trying to survive forces us into this struggle. Some have argued that this even forces us to kill for language, that is to kill for the instructions that we need to carry on our lives. This violence unecessarily being perceived as vital to maintaining our identities and a set of instructions that tell us how to live. The word can indeed kill.
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Swidden
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I'll have to come back to this thread when I have time to go more in depth. Nice subject caltrek.
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Swidden
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It's fair to say that all of this began probably when two cavemen sitting around campfire were searching for something to say. Probably as a result of the first awkward pause in human history.

Some are quick push aside anything that remotely touches on the metaphysical or supernatural when this sort of subject comes up. It may be possible that science (physics, quantum mechanics, string theory, etc.) will eventually produce all the answers to the questions this idea generates. Or, it may only generate more questions in return. The latter is what seems to be the nominal result.
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caltrek
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Of course some of the appeal of The Matirx is the whole notion of virtual realities. These realities are made possible in some way or another by computer simulations. They can rely heavily on ones own imagination, as in a role playing game between two people on a key board, or they can involve multiple sensory inputs to make that reality more "real". Computers can range in involvement from simply streaming words back and forth to "creating" a whole virtual universe that the individual(s) inhabit(s).

The medium is indeed the massage.

So old stories can be re-packaged using the new computer aided devices. Entirely new stories, that pay careful attention to lessons learned in how to tell a story, can also be told.

Yes, yes, it is a lot like staring into the flames while listening to the old story teller weaving his story.
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