The Truman show was a great movie. Just to put that out there. First time I have seen it was in class. Truman finds out that his is in a television show ever since his was in the womb of his mother. So he escapes to sea and when he gets to the edge, Christof speaks to him and asks him if he wanted to stay in Seahaven or go to a world he knows little or nothing about. He chooses the outside world and I think I would have to agree. I believe that living in the world of Seahaven would be very boring repetitive life. Were in the outside world you can basically do whatever you please. I also believe that people can develop fear in Seahaven because Truman did. He feared the ocean because of his alleged fathers death traumatized him. So it does not make a difference you would have something to fear about in either world might as well be the real one. Even thought I know little about the outside world, I would still not let the opportunity pass because I am highly adventurous and I would try and explore what is out there.

Truman starts to piece together the falsity of the world around him. His interpretation of Seahaven is changed. He starts to question and analyze all that he encounters. There are certain parallels in my life that changed the way I processed the world in the same way. In early childhood, kids are being told minor fibs for long period of time by their parents about certain things, such as Santa Clause. I don’t know about anyone else but the way processed the world change after finding out he wasn’t real. I was told that the tooth fairy comes to my house and exchanges my tooth for money, same goes for other children, I hope. I was in a world were it exists. But after I woken up one time with my father exchanging the tooth with money, the way I processed the world was different.

Fate, Freedom, and Foreknowledge - Blog 5

I believe in freewill because you have the choice to do whatever you want. Back in high school, I was doing poorly in one class and needed to pass the final to pass the class. I was given the choice to either fail the final and go to summer school or study and pass the final to advance to the next grade. Same for Neo when he had to make a choice between saving his own life or Morpheus’. He then freely makes his choice later in the film. Schick says, “Even in a world where causal determination is true, knowing a prediction can lead us to its falsification.” I knew if I had not studied for that final I would have failed. Neo knew if he did not make the choice to save Morpheus, he would have died. Therefore, I think everyone has the freewill to do whatever he or she desire; you just have to have the will to do so.

Real or Unreal - Blog 4

Jorge J.E. Gracia and Jonathan J. Sanford uses the terms “source” and “ontological status” to explain weather the Matrix is “unreal” or the world outside the matrix is “real”. They define the term ontological status as the way something simply exists as said on page 61 of The Matrix and Philosophy. The term source means to obtain from particular supplier or the origin of something. What they are saying is to find the ontological status of something is to find its source, if any. In one hand, they say that the world of the matrix is not real because, in terms of ontological status, we do not know all the sources in the world of the matrix. On the other hand, the world of the Matrix is real because it does not depend on something else to maintain their existence when the “real” world has to depend on humans to exist. I believe that if you cannot find the source of something, their ontological status does not exist. Therefore, I do agree with their assignment.

The Matrix and Philosophy - Blog 3

The reading that interested me most is Skepticism, Morality and The Matrix by Gerald Erion and Barry Smith. They talk about why we might be living in the Matrix and they are skeptic that we cannot know for sure that the external world exists. I highly agree that we do not know for certain that there is a Matrix. What particularly interested me is the ideas of Rene Descartes. He believed that a “malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive.” I like this idea because there could be a possibility of a demon making us think or do whatever he wants without us being cognisant of what is happening. Peter Unger has a similar idea but instead of a malicious demon controlling you he thinks a evil scientist is. I completely agree to their ideas because we have no idea if this is true but there’s a possibility.

Thoughts about the Matrix - Blog 2

When I have first seen the film The Matrix years ago, I thought I just saw a regular science-fiction action movie. Watching it again in class made me realize there is more to it then crazy fighting scenes. It made me realize that there is philosophy and religion behind it. Just like Jesus Christ. Neo dies and comes back to life. As Judas from the twelve disciples betrays Jesus, Cypher does the same to Neo. Trinity is compared to the Holy Spirit and Morpheus is compared to “god” of the matrix. The philosophy behind the film is were Neo is compared to Socrates and the film is compared to the Allegory of the Cave. Are we living in the Matrix is what really runs through my mind. No one will ever have knowledge of themselves being in the Matrix. As written in Peter Unger’s 1975 book Ignorance, he believes that an evil scientist is using a computer to create electrical impulses that are sent to our central nervous system. Then using these impulses to stimulate our brain. He then tells us that the scientist tricks us into thinking that there are objects like books and chairs when there is not. However, do we really know if there is an evil scientist? Do we really know if books or chairs are there or not? Like these ideas, we would never know if we are living in the Matrix or not. Just the idea of an evil scientist deceiving you of what you are thinking and doing is mind bottling.

Allegory of the Cave - Blog 1

In Socrates' cave, I would believe to be in the stage of being chained up inside. This is a direct reference to The Matrix, where people are living in a dream world and they only have the knowledge that this is their reality. I would be still at the stage of being chained up because that would be my reality. Being freed would just confuse and lose me from what reality is as I learned it. I know where I am because shackled between a fire and a wall watching shadow go by for long period of time is closest thing to reality around so I have grown accustom to it. In my life, something that was taught to me since I was very young is being a catholic. I was grown and accustom to being a catholic all my life, so I would be confused and reject any other religion. As if I were chained up in the cave, I know where I am and I know what my reality is. I believe that if you are taught something you are going to stick with that fact. I was taught to be catholic as a child so I stuck with it. Being chained in the cave watching these shadows pass by and being told that this was reality, I am going to stick with it because this is what I was taught and grown to know.