h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Cartesian Elements in The Matrix - A3979506
Author: rico12484 - U1526899

I am submitting this in the hope that some non-philosophy people will read this and ask questions that force me to explain the terms I can take for granted sometimes. Though I am a fan of the film this is not a "matrix is the best movier ever" entry. I am just trying to promote interesting thought

Ah, the vexed question of the nature of reality.

Descartes came to the conclusion that the only thing he could be sure of was the existence of his own mind, but he needed to justify trusting those contents as something real. He used God to achieve this justification, but his justification for believing in God depended on the claim that his idea of God had more "representational reality" than other ideas. His solution was therefore circular - representational reality had to be given at the outset.

The Matrix attempted to answer a question that is implicit in Descartes - "If all life is a dream, or a deception, what happens when we wake up?" - by means of the "brain in a vat" thought experiment.

Noggin

This is true. The flaw in Descartes argument is addressed in Kant's first critique of pure reason. Descartes argument is that God is a perfect being and that it is more perfect to actualy exist then to exist only in an ideal sense. Kant's reply to this is that being is not actualy a predicate. The idea of one hundrd dollars is not worth any more then the actual hundred dollars. Both are only $100. However Descares proof for the existence of God was not necessary for the proof of existence. The cogito alone provides for that. The purpose of God was to escape the evil deciver. Neo actualy is under the control of an evil deciever. This is all a good point, do you think it should be added to my entry in some way?

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In a sense this is true (and it's quite interesting to consider how it does this), but it's also a dead end, in as much as the existence of anything outside the mind can't be established from the existence of the mind alone.

Interestingly, in the Matrix, there is a similar kind of problem - when Neo awakes from the illusion that is the Matrix how does he know he has awoken to reality and not to a new level of illusion?

As far as adding things to the entry goes, for this kind of piece it's probably best to discuss it for a while, and then see if it still says what you want it to say. The main problem is that "Writing Workshop" is not a much frequented forum, but I'm not sure where it should go for a wider discussion. Perhaps when you've had a bit of time to think about it it could be submitted to Peer Review, perhaps with a comment that you're open to suggestion for other final destinations if it's not suitable (rather than not good - PR is only for entries that meet criteria for type of content).

Noggin

Author has elvised - flea market? I don't understand the entry, but I think it's factual, so maybe someone will want to pick it up.

Yep - out of Writing Workshop and into Flea Market, where hopefully someone who has a better knwoledge of the subject can rewrite it.

Note: This Entry has been added to a list of Writing Workshop removals. The Entry will hopefully be removed shortly, after which I will submit it to the FleaMarket.

Ok, the Entry has now left the EGWW.

*unsubscribes*