The Matrix, Baudrillard, and The question that drives us crazy
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Being a Software Engineer, generally, I write technical articles about programming-related things. But, this time I will take a 360 turn (perhaps 180 or so) to discuss my most favorite movie, The Matrix and, some of its underlying messages. Mostly this article will focus on the first Matrix movie that came out in 1999.
I am a huge fan of The Matrix. When I first watched the movie (the first one), I was fascinated by the kung fu fights, the famous lobby shootout scene, the chase scenes, the bullet time, the cool sunglasses, the music, and whatnot. Also at the same time, I learned some cool buzzwords/buzz-phases like hacking, virtual reality, digital rain, etc, all related to computers. When I watched Tank doing some cool things as a computer operator or learned that Trinity has hacked, a very difficult to crack system, the internal revenue service (sounds cool, but hacking is not good and always pay your taxes) or machines have created a world inside the computer, I realized that the use of a computer is not limited to playing games or listening to music or writing something and printing it which were the only things I was doing back then. Specially, the possibility of creating a computer-generated fake world blew my mind. At that point, I was already familiar with virtual reality, as earlier, I saw a similar concept known as the QuestWorld in one of my favorite animated shows, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. (Even now when I watch the intro I get goosebumps.) So I was very interested and subconsciously I was lured into doing something involving computers in later phases of my life. As a result, I became a Software Engineer and I am really proud of it.
I believe not only me, but a lot of people from my generation became interested in computing after watching The Matrix.
Honestly, I am obsessed with The Matrix franchise. Not only have I watched the movies multiple times, but I have also read about it; explanations, philosophical analysis, other people’s interpretations, etc. Even I had started to study the original script. (But later dropped the idea as it would have been too much :p). I was so obsessed, so deluded that at one point I started questioning myself that, is it possible that I am living in a computer simulation?
So, after spending years finding the answer, I now probably have come to a strong assumption: maybe I live inside a simulation but not necessarily a computer-generated one. The computer simulation shown in the movie is an allegory to explain the unknowable nature of any structure in general. So, what I think, The Matrix is not about AI or VR, or Programming. The makers just used some very advanced concept of computer science to convey their philosophy passively to the mass audience.
Introduction
To be very explicit, what I think, Matrix is:
Mostly Simulacra and Simulation + Some other philosophies, coated inside a cyberpunk action movie.
Simulacra and Simulation is a book by a prominent, and unconventional French sociologist Jean Baudrillard.
In the book, he discussed some levels of simulation our society has faced in different eras and currently facing too.
- The Sacramental Order: This is the exact imitation of the real. For example, when we stand in front of the mirror. We see our exact reflection. There is no addition of fabrication. It’s a “faithful” copy of the real.
- Order of Maleficence: This is not a true reflection of reality. From this level, the distortion of the actual imitation starts. As an example, imagine I started a video call with someone and turned on the beauty camera mode. Now the person on the other side can recognize me without much effort. But the image that person is seeing is not an actual representation. So it is a “perversion” of reality.
- Order of Sorcery: In this level, imitation is even more denatured. The real copy has gone through multiple addition or deletion and it only “pretends” to be real. Now, we might have heard about meatless chicken. (Oxymoron, I know but, you can find them in supermarkets). It actually has no connection with the real chicken. It just pretends to be one. But, as consumers, we know what we are consuming and though it might be a little bit difficult to distinguish, we are aware of it not being a real chicken.
That’s exactly my point. Exactly. Because you have to wonder: how do the machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal, or tuna fish. That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn’t figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything. — Mouse, The Matrix.
- Pure Simulation: At this level, there is no connection to reality exist anymore. The line between pretending to be real and not real gets blurry. This level shows the features of Hyper-Reality, which is the inability of the consciousness to distinguish between real and artificial. Hyperreality is when the simulation becomes more important than the real. Media or technology plays a vital role in creating pure simulation because of that reason it is more evident in the postmodern era. For example, someone shares a piece of news on a social media website, we read it, we see the attached pictures. We consider it to be real. But the news could be totally made up. Maybe the images are fake and the words are untrue. But we cannot justify its authenticity until we know whether the source is authentic. Most of the time it is impossible because there is no single source and also the sources are multileveled. Another example, a few months back I saw a video on YouTube where a mother met her deceased daughter through Virtual Reality (VR). She tried to touch her, tried to feel her. She cried and wished it was real. At that point, it’s a hyper-reality as VR had become more important to her than the real physical world.
The simulated world, Matrix, that we see in the movie is a pure simulation. It has features of Hyper-reality created by the machines that hide the distorted but the real-world from the humans.
Observable References
The influence of Simulacra and Simulation is all over the movie and it cannot be overlooked. The makers have given some evident references. For example, in one of the earliest scenes, Neo is shown holding the book.
There are some direct quotes taken from the book. At least, I have found one. There is a scene where Morpheus is explaining to Neo what has happened to the real world. He introduced by saying, “Welcome to the desert of the real”. This is directly picked up from one of the chapters called, The Precession of Simulacra. In the same scene, according to the earlier script of the movie, Morpheus was supposed to say:
You have been living inside Baulliaurd's vision, inside the map, not the territory. This is Chicago as it exists today.
So the makers were planning to mention Baudrillard’s name directly in the movie and also the concept of Map vs Territory is one of the main topics of the book.
Moreover, the book was required to be read by the main cast and crew before reading the main script [1][2]. Perhaps, the makers wanted to transfer ideas from the book to the people who were going to work on the movie. Also, Baudrillard was invited to collaborate for the sequels (The Matrix: Reloaded, The Matrix: Revolution) but, he rejected that [3]. Why he had rejected is discussed later in the article.
Besides these, the most prominent theme that the movie and the book share, which is the topic of this article, is the growing tension between real and simulation and the gradually departing difference between them.
Abstract Thematic Similarities
Everything after this paragraph is my interpretation of the movie and my assumption about its similarities to Baudrillard’s ideas.
The virtual world that is shown in the movie is merely a metaphoric reference to the pure simulation concept. Neo lived a portion of his life inside the Matrix, oblivious to the fact that it’s just an illusion that blindfolded him from the real world, which is destroyed long ago. While living inside it, he had no idea that his perception of reality is totally made up. Inside that illusion, he was a programmer for a reputed company, he was a hacker, he used to go to his favorite restaurant to have noodles. All of the things he experienced while living inside the Matrix, were artificial and he was totally clueless about that.
I have these memories of my life. None of them happened. — Neo, The Matrix.
Not only Neo, all the people that were inside the Matrix, who are referred to as the Blue Pills, were bounded by the false notion of reality. So, the movie tried to convey the fact that something can be purely simulated and the consumer will consume it without any doubt as the consumer’s senses and experiences do not help to differentiate between them. The consumer doesn’t know anything beyond the simulation.
The pure simulation does not have to be a technology-backed computer-simulated world. It could be a very simple thing that hides the actual semantics. For example, a simple YouTube prank video. You will find lots of videos on YouTube categories as the Gold Digger Pranks. In such pranks, a person is tested whether (s)he prefers another person by their materialistic possession or by their human characteristics. Now, most of the time, the person who is being tested/pranked ends up choosing materialistic possession. Watching such videos, a lot of people will think that it has really happened because it is very believable to the viewers who have been born, grew up, and live, in a consumerist society. The video gets likes, shares and we get a very stigmatic message, which we believe to be true. Now, we can imagine how the media can influence opinions. High chances are, by showing something which is not real and we the consumers, would not be able to check its authenticity.
Now think about WWE. When I was a kid, I thought the bloody fights, the heated parking lot conversations, the relation and interaction between the wrestlers, and many other things of that show are real. I was fascinated, addicted to that. Even after discovering that, all of those are mere acting, I kept consuming it, kept convincing myself that I am not aware of its actual nature. Thus, it had become a hyper-reality for me, more important than reality.
The same example can be given for any reality show e.g. American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent, Hell’s Kitchen, etc [4]. I am not saying that they are fake but how do we know that they are not fake. Does labeling them as Reality Shows make them real? Does naming a can of meatless chicken as chicken makes it real chicken? So, it’s the label that is deciding what is real? And, also, many of us don’t even care if a reality show is actually a reality show, as long as it can entertain. So, on the one hand, we don’t know whether the product we are consuming is real or not, and on the other, we choose to be ignorant about it. The latter one had happened with Cypher in the movie. He knew that the Matrix is an artificial structure though he chose to re-enter it again and wanted to forget about Zion for good. For him, the simulation is more exciting, more acceptable than the real world.
Ignorance is bliss. — Cypher, The Matrix. (Originates from Thomas Gray’s poem [5])
Technological advancement has made such confusion more dominant in modern times. A perfect example can be Deepfakes. Deepfake takes media content, makes some alterations, and produces a denatured copy that appears absolutely real. Earlier, these kinds of alterations were limited to pictures, and being able to identify the denatured part was very easy because the fake copies were very poor in quality. But Deepfake is very advanced and alarming at the same time [6]. The invention of such a tool is only possible if the overall technological evolution is very advanced.
Symbols and icons also play a vital role to create a pure simulation. We tend to get convinced by the branding of a product instead of its actual nature and potential. Our markets are full of products that have alluring packaging, catchy tagline, and sometimes faces of celebrities. The outer appearance of such products gives an impression of being very effective for its purpose that a consumer totally overlooks the internal nature of it. There is a term Health Fraud used by FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) to categories some products that spread wrong and misleading information to the consumers. For example, Tobacco-Related Health Fraud. All tobacco-related products are harmful to health. Despite that, a tobacco manufacturer may put “Light,” “Low,” or “Mild” in their product packaging to make it appear less risky which may not be right as it may not have been proven scientifically. Such packaging or labeling can trick the consumer to believe something, which is not real, thus it creates a simulation of the real.
Baudrillard in his work has expressed these signs or symbols as something which replaced all realities and meanings for the consumers. Moreover, it hides the relevancy of anything like reality to our current perception of survival [7]. The effect of a logo or symbol is very deceptive. The ability to put on a t-shirt having a NKIE logo can segregate people into so-called classes. So, the prevalence of these symbols or media projection, the simulation, is so extreme, so evident that it has altered the meaning of reality to us and consumers are no longer in a position to differentiate what is real and what is artificial.
If you give it a thought, then everything we see around us can be a simulation that belongs to a specific level (discussed earlier).
The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. — Morpheus, The Matrix.
Now, we may wonder how this simulation was created in the first place. As it is so wide-reaching, probably, it was planned by a collective approach that believes in a specific ideology.
In the movie, the artificial world is created by the machine as a System of Control. The war between humans and machines (where humans lost) had destroyed the means of energy for the machine to survive [8]. For survival, they had to look for other ways to generate energy. So, to support their energy needs, they captured all humans (prisoners of war) and started to use their bioelectric, thermal, and kinetic energy. Consciously, no human being will allow that. So, the machines created a simulated world called Matrix (which is a system of control under the hood) and connected every human being to it. Now, the connected people don’t know that their body is being used as a battery, but all they are perceiving is an artificial world that is modeled after a real physical world. If anyone somehow becomes aware of the simulation and tries to revolt against it, machines use their assassin-like programs, namely Agents, to neutralize them.
This system of control, which is portrayed in the movie, is a metaphor for the system of control that Baudrillard expressed in this book. Both are created to use the consumers while they obliviously reside inside a simulation. It can be inferred from Baudrillard’s book that this system of control is created by a kind of political ideology. But I don’t want to discuss it here as I don’t want to politicize the whole article and, that is not the intent as well. (Personally, I don’t have any political preference. I believe in anything that is good for the people and the society, regardless of any branch or part of the spectrum they belong to).
One of the most fascinating things about The Matrix is that it was way ahead of its time. The controlled use of CGI, special effects, cinematography, and cutting-edge soundtracks had made the whole movie-making technique unique and influenced many later movies. Not only its visual mastery but also its underlying messages are more relevant nowadays. As discussed earlier, machines were dependent on humans for energy, but at the same time, humans were consuming something which is constructed by the machines. At that point, the consumer-product relation falls into a dilemma. The consumer of the Matrix, the humans, were a product to the machine. Currently, the process of we becoming the products of a digital system is in progress and, it’s getting stronger every second. Some of us have heard about recommendation systems. Many of us have unknowingly experienced it. For example, you are posting about something on social media, like your desire for a specific kind of car. Then after some time, you are finding some ads of such cars magically appearing on your social media page. Now, what is happening under the hood is, the system is absorbing your behavioral information, and based on that, it is trying to predict your desire and presenting it to you with the purpose of monetization. This is also known as Surveillance-Based Advertising. The prediction is a mathematical process executed by specialized computer algorithms and nowadays due to exponential advancement of technology, there are strong computing systems that can execute such complex, time and resource-demanding algorithms. To these algorithms, we, the consumers are mere inputs. As a result, we are becoming products for the digital structure. Baudrillard described this phenomenon as Passivity, where a consumer becomes a pure absorbing surface and (s)he cannot help but absorb the information. He analogizes this thing by saying, “You no longer watch TV, it is TV that watches you (live),” or again: “You are no longer listening to Don’t Panic, it is Don’t Panic that is listening to you”.[9]
Baudrillard’s Disaccord
Even though Simulacra and Simulation has a huge influence on the movie, Baudrillard was not very convinced about them being parallel. Moreover, he was critical of it because he believed it misinterpreted his philosophy [10]. In 2004, Baudrillard did an interview with the French magazine called Le Nouvel Observateur. He was asked about his opinion on the movie. Out of several things, he had pointed out one of the things as a serious flaw.
The most embarrassing part of the film is that the new problem posed by simulation is confused with its classical, Platonic treatment. This is a serious flaw. — Jean Baudrillard, Le Nouvel Observateur.
He thought that the nature of the simulation that is portrayed by the movie has a Platonic treatment. Here I think he pointed to The Allegory of the Cave by the great philosopher, Plato. [11]
The allegory is, a group of prisoners is chained and locked inside a cave since birth. They have no idea of the world outside the cave. They have been chained in a way that they cannot move their heads, as a result, day and night, they have to watch the wall in front of them. Now there are the puppeteers behind them holding puppets, who project shadows on the wall. The prisoners cannot see the real puppet, but only the shadows. So, they don’t learn about the real thing, but the simulacra. One day one of the prisoners was freed and he went out of the cave. But the real world he saw outside the cave is hard for him to believe as his knowledge is limited to those shadows he saw in the cave. But gradually he understood that what has been shown to him in the cave is a mere reflection of reality. Thus he became a philosopher and returned to the cave to enlighten the other prisoners [12]. (But the prisoners didn’t believe him. Why? That is totally a different topic to discuss).
A similar kind of concept is shown in the movie. Neo living in the cave (The Matrix) then, he is freed and went outside (Zion). And, this is where Baudrillard thought that his work and, Platos’s allegory are mixed up in the movie. The distinction between pure simulation and reality is very evident in the movie. Neo knows that the Matrix is not Zion and vice-versa. According to Baudrillard, such distinction is not possible because to know the difference, one needs to first realize that what the simulation is.
But it is no longer a question of either maps or territories. Something has disappeared: the sovereign difference, between one and the other, that constituted the charm of abstraction. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
An opinionated Conclusion
In the postmodern era, the relationship between an individual and society is programmed. It is programmed in a way that the lifestyle choice of an individual should always be controlled by society. Different societies have different codes for their members to follow e.g, what to eat, what to wear, what to read, what to believe, what should be your life goal, what should be your preferences, etc. Now, society is a collection of ideas that are influenced by many factors e.g. the geographical location of the society, its belief system, its economic condition, etc. When a child is born, he immediately becomes a part of the program and is handed over a copy of the code. The program will now tell the child to grow up in a certain way, like having a certain belief system, getting a specific kind of education, choosing a specific kind of career, then get committed to someone, and then reproduce another carrier of the code. So, in a sense, the carrier’s life is predetermined from birth to death. The program will try to run like this, generation after generation. If a member tries to go against the program, then the whole society will come together and try to persuade back that member to obey the code.
The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. — Morpheus, The Matrix.
If anyone rejects the program, society will consider that individual as an outlier, an anomaly of the system. Without the anomaly, the program will become stronger and, the anomaly will be set as a bad example to the other members of society.
You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. — The Architect to Neo, The Matrix.
The program is a pure simulation as it hides a very important thing which is, the truth of being happy. The program is a system of control, in disguise. It promises that being successful thus achieving fulfillment in life depends on whether the code is followed properly. It tells the carrier of the code that achieving materialistic abundance is the ultimate goal. Which could totally be wrong or totally be right. But, there is no way to be certain and that is why it is a simulation.
whether we live in a simulation or not, everything comes down to one question. Are we happy with our lives? If our happiness is, just fulfilling a system of control, then we need to ask ourselves if the meaning of happiness to us is itself simulated or not.
Honest Confession: Finally, I want to make a confession. To me, who is from a totally different discipline, a work like Simulacra and Simulation seemed very cryptic. Also, the book is written in a perplexing way which makes it very hard to follow. So to be able to understand it more, in parallel, I had to take help from supporting reads, YouTube videos, etc (and honestly, I haven’t finished the book yet.). I took the interest and challenge to read the book only because my favorite movie The Matrix, is influenced by it. So, I don’t consider this article as some sort of analysis of Jean Baudrillard’s work.
Thanks for reading.
