Cartesian Elements in The Matrix
Created | Updated Jan 29, 2007
Descarte’s Meditations was an important cleft point in the history of western philosophy. It was a definitive move away from the Aristotelian method that had dominated for the last 2000 years and would begin the deconstruction of Aristotle’s metaphysic. The first film in the Matrix series, simply called The Matrix, had almost as profound an effect on cinema. No other film before it had forced people to think about such complex issues. It cannot be an accident that, up to a point the Meditations and the Matrix mirror each other so closely. Even after they diverge the difference is one of content not of form. Both films deal with a critical question. What is real? Descartes asked what we can know absolutely to be beyond all doubt. Neo, the lead character of the Matrix, wanted to know what the matrix was.
A cornerstone of Descartes Meditations is the distinction between the substances of mind and body. It is Descartes claim that these substances are real and actual. In the film this distinction is mirrored in the separate worlds that Neo exists in, the real world and the digital world. The real world is the world of body. It is a world in which the vast majority of humanity was used to power an empire of artificially intelligent machines. This included, while he was hooked into the matrix, Neo, who then existed only as Thomas Anderson, and his body was a power source for the machines. The digital world on the other hand is one of pure mental substance. In the digital world, which at this point is the only world he is aware exists, Mr. Anderson discovers that he is more then just a battery, he is “the one,” a being with powers limited only by his mind. He meets people who have escaped the matrix, and who labor to free those minds that are ready and able to handle the shock
This mirrors Descartes statement that what is essential to a persons existence is that he is a thinking thing. The body is not essential to existence. When Neo discovers that the body he though was his own was just a reflection of the idea his mind had of his body, Morpheus refers to it as “residual self image,” that does not change who he is. Even when Neo discovers what his real body looks like, his self image remains the same. When he jacks back into the Matrix, knowing that it is not the real world he looks as he did before he was freed. There are no ports on his arms, he has a full growth of hair on his head, and the jack on the back of his neck is gone.
During the first ten chapters of the film Neo journeys upon the same road of doubt that Descartes faced in the Meditations. During his life Neo was faced with the feeling that there were things in the world for which he could not account. The over arching question he sought an answer for was; “What is the Matrix?” Descartes asked the same question, what is real? What can we know with total certainty?
For both Neo and Descartes this search was voluntary. Both chose to cast aside what they though they knew and search for truth. For both men this journey was prompted by failure of their own knowledge. For Descartes this failure was more gradual. Over time he was faced with a growing unease that things he had always taken as true were in fact false. So one day, when he was ready, he set everything aside and examined what he knew. For Neo this was a more sudden and violent process. When a computer expert has their machine forcibly hijacked and every escape method, including the venerable ctrl-alt-del fails, and someone starts sending you messages predicting events outside of the machine, the effect can be unsettling.
Neo truly is made aware of the complete failure of his idea of the world when he is captured by the Agents. During their interrogation they erase his mouth, sealing it shut and then insert a robotic tracking devise in his abdomen. But like Descartes, Neo’s concept of the world refuses to go quietly. It makes every possible effort to explain the events it has witnessed. He wakes up after the insertion, convinced that it was all a dream. But when confronted by the reality of his “dream” Neo is forced to make a choice. It is the same choice Descartes was faced with, to find out what is. In Morpheus’ proposal Neo is faced with his choice, the red pill or the blue pill, taking the red pill will continue him on his journey, taking the blue pill will make everything seem like a dream. No one can choose for him.
When Neo takes the red pill his reality soon starts to come undone. A mirror becomes a viscous liquid and he awakes to find himself all alone in a vat of goo. Once he is rescued, he is rehabilitated until he is ready to learn the truth. But at this point he is utterly alone. He does not know where or when he is. Nothing he thought he knew can he place any faith in. His road of doubt ended at the same place as Descartes’. All they knew was that they existed because they knew they thought. They think therefore they are.
Here the paths of the Meditations and the Matrix separate. Descartes goes on to assert the existence of a benevolent god who guarantees the reality of our existence. But the Matrix retains the evil deceiver, though Neo is now free of his grasp. But both Descartes and the Matrix exemplify the existence of the two substances. While jacked into the mental world of the construct Morpheus educates Neo into the nature of reality., first through a lecture on what the real world is, then though a demonstration of what the Matrix is. He shows Neo how the only limits of a mental world are the limits of your own mind. From here on the Matrix is Cartesian in method but not in content. Descartes metaphysical claims about God and reality are not present in the film. But there are still several point where the Meditation and the Matrix agree.
One comes up when Neo emerges from his fight with Morpheus in the construct. He feels the pain in his body despite the fact that his mind is separate. Morpheus explains that even though they are separate they are together, when the mind dies the body soon follows. Descartes struggled with the communication between mind and body. It was clear that they did communicate but how could they be separate if they did? Descartes answer seems absurd to us today but in understandable when considered in light of the science of his day. For Descartes the connection between the mind and body was through the pineal gland. The orders of the mind and the desires and sensations of the body were transmitted back and forth via animal spirits in the blood stream of red blood cells. The Matrix does not give such a detailed description of the connection, only asserting that it exists, a fact that Neo cannot a doubt at this time because he can feel it, only in later films will the nature of this connection become clear.
Descartes famous statement of his essence, “I think therefore I am,” is echoed by Neo during his battle with Agent Smith in the subway station. Agent Smith always called Neo Mr. Anderson, a reference to his bodily identity and his assertion that Neo was little more then an animal, a body, with a primitive mind that was more an accident of nature then a real thinking things. Neo denies this however and asserts the primacy of his mind over his body when he says, “My name is Neo,” or to paraphrase I am who I think I am.
Following this Neo defeats Agent Smith and believes that he is the one and the essence of the Matrix, its code, is revealed to him. Upon being freed from his self imposed handicaps he is able to do many things normally held to be impossible. He flies through the air, stops bullets with a wave of the hand, moves faster then anyone has ever seen. This is the promise of Descartes Meditations. Once we discard our cultural baggage and realize what is real and true nothing will be beyond our grasp. While we will not be able to fly we will be able to discover equally astounding things about our world. In the film Morpheus makes promises to Neo of what his abilities will be once he believes.
“Are you saying I will be able to dodge bullets?”
“No. I am telling you then when you are ready, you won’t have to.”
