Exegesis of the Matrix

If you are curious about the Wachowski brothers' films, The Matrix and The matrix Reloaded, and interested in its allusions to technology and philosophy, then you might like to read this new book on the films. "Exegesis of the Matrix" by Peter B Lloyd was published by Whole-being Books on 4th November 2003. ISBN 1-902987-09-8, 289 pages, paperback. Table of contents.

Some of the material has previously been published in the two essays listed below. The new work is a book-length treatment, which contains expanded versions of the above essays plus more extensive analyses of the philosophical, religious, and political questions raised by the films.

• Glitches in the Matrix by Peter B. Lloyd
  This essay was commissioned as a contribution to the book Taking the Red Pill, edited by Glenn Yeffeth. The book was published by BenBella books in April 2003 and is in print and available in bookshops in the USA and the UK. This chapter is also online on Ray Kurzweil's web site.

• Glitches Reloaded by Peter B. Lloyd
  This is a follow-on essay about the Reloaded sequel, commissioned by the editor of Ray Kurzweil's web site, Amara Angelica.

Also available (for only a short while longer) is an earlier version of the book, as a PDF file, 177 pages. This is available by FTP, price US$10. To order it, click on the payment page.

To launch the book, Peter B Lloyd gave a talk on the Matrix to sixty-five people at West Hampstead Library on the evening of Tuesday 4th November 2003. This was good start but then, er, nothing really happened until April 2005, when Peter Lloyd was one of the four speakers at a one-day seminar on the ideas of the Matrix, organised by the Scientific and Medical Network. That sold another ten copies. Andrew Brightwell of the local newspaper Ham & High wrote a piece on the author just before the launch event, but the book was never reviewed in the mainstream media. Sales of the book have continued to trickle in via Amazon UK. The rate of sales did not noticeably increase with the release of the Roots of the Matrix DVD in the Warner Brothers boxed set of the Matrix trilogy, which features Lloyd as one of the philosophers. By mid-2005, about three-quarters of the initial print run of 300 copies had been sold. A second edition may eventually come out, but don't hold your breath.

Informally, some good feedback was received from various people, including Josh Oreck (which is how Lloyd got onto the DVD). So why didn't the book sell? Mainly because high-street bookshops do not like dealing with self-published books. (The only shop that stocked significant quanties was in Valetta, on the island of Malta.)

To see what is inside the Exegesis of the Matrix, see the Table of contents. (This is the contents of the 289-page printed edition: the ebook is a shorter and earlier version, only 177 pages.)

Philosophy books on the Matrix

compiled by Peter B. Lloyd

1. BOOKS

"Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix"

Edited by Glenn yeffeth, introduction by David Gerrold

This book has had positive reviews, such as the one by James Schellenberg:

"I was not expecting much from this book, frankly, as the level of quality for any kind of movie-tie-in type material has always been fairly low. I'm happy to report that Yeffeth has assembled a top-notch selection of articles. Overall, the tone of the book is several steps above typical gushy movie-related writing, like making-of books; in fact, this book would be quite appropriate for an introductory university-level course and perfect for anyone studying philosophy through science fiction. ... Taking the Red Pill is a worthwhile collection of essays, a book of surprising depth."

Peter Lloyd, on the other hand, offers up a wonderful set of questions to challenge the logic of the Matrix in his essay "Glitches in the Matrix and How to Fix Them". Speaking from neurology to physics, Lloyd brings out the best of the geek-ness in anyone who appreciates the sci-fi aspect of the film.

Ever have a knock-down, drag-out argument about the sf elements of The Matrix? Peter B. Lloyd’s 'Glitches in The Matrix and How to Fix Them' is a virtual armory of weapons for that discussion. ... Yeffeth clearly wanted to compile articles that were readable yet intelligent and insightful. He succeeded. Yeffeth and publisher BenBella Books are to be commended for assembling and publishing such a fine text ....

Wendy Grossman in New Scientist had this to say:

My favourite is Peter B. Lloyd's effort to rationalise the apparent inconsistencies in the technical workings of the Matrix itself.

You can hear Glenn Yeffeth talking about the Matrix and this book in a recording of an interview on KUOW 94.9 radio, on www.kuow.org on 29th May 2003. Peter Lloyd discussed the book live on TechTV on 16th May 2003.

Full texts of two chapters are online: Ray Kurzweil's "The human machine merger: are we heading for the The Matrix" and my own, "Glitches in The Matrix and how to fix them". You can find these on Ray Kurzweil's site, www.kurzweilai.net (see Kurzweil and Lloyd respectively). Since then, Ray Kurzweil has also uploaded his review of The Matrix Reloaded and a further essay by Peter B. Lloyd, Glitches Reloaded. The site includes a discussion thread for each essay, the most recent one being the thread for Kurzweil's review.

Table of contents:

• David Gerrold: Introduction
  A straightforward introduction to the film and the reason for having a book like this one.
• Read Mercer Schuchardt: "What is the Matrix?"
  This essay is a magisterial account of the Matrix and its significance in the popularisation of serious philosophy. A review of the film by Schuchardt, which overlaps with this essay, can be seen at www.shootthemessenger.com.
• Robin Hanson: "Was Cypher right? (Part I) Why we stay in our Matrix"
  Hanson draws a strained analogy between the virtual world of the Matrix and the emotional and conceptual world created by our 'selfish genes'. Author's home page: hanson.gmu.edu.
• Lyle Zynda: "Was Cypher right? (Part II) The Nature of Reality and Why It Matters"
  This is an intelligent analysis of the Matrix's metaphysics, but it doesn't quite get the crucially relevant philosophy of Bishop Berkeley right. Author's home page: www.iusb.edu/~lzynda.
• Robert J. Sawyer: "Artificial intelligence, science fiction, and The Matrix"
  As befits a veteran of the science-fiction genre, Sawyer brings some interesting historical perspective to bear on the film. Somewhat unusually for a non-philosopher, though, he also makes some acute comments on consciousness and the role of humans in the Matrix. Author's home page: www.sfwriter.com. An earlier version of the essay is online at the author's site, at AI and Sci-Fi: My, Oh, My!.
• James Gunn: "The reality paradox in The Matrix"
  This is excellent source material for anyone researching ideas related to The Matrix throughout the long history of science fiction. Gunn is well-informed on his subject, but I would have preferred to see the long list of facts leavened with more analysis and discussion.
• Dino Felluga: "The Matrix: Paradigm of post-modernism or intellectual poseur? (Part I)"
  What interested me most in this essay is not Baudrillard, but the intriguing discussion of how the plot of the sequels will develop. His suggestion of a higher Matrix that contains the world of the Nebuchadnazzer, and in which the human rebellions are preprogrammed, prefigures what 'Desa' later wrote in Time magazine on 12th May 2003 after seeing Matrix Reloaded. But what really hit me was the appearance of the woman in red inside the Matrix itself. I didn't even see that ... Author's home page: web.ics.purdue.edu/~felluga/
• Andrew Gordon: "The Matrix: Paradigm of post-modernism or intellectual poseur? (Part II)"
  This is the best introduction I've seen to the bizarre theories of Jean Baudrillard, author of Simulacra and Simulation, and their relation to The Matrix. Gordon steers a neutral course, of explaining Baudrillard without either knocking him as a crank or hailing him as prophet. Author's home page: www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agordon/.
• Peter B. Lloyd: "Glitches in The Matrix ... and how to fix them"
  The author originally gave this piece the bland but more descriptive title "The technology of the Matrix". Starting from the hypothesis that everything we see in the film is true, what could we infer or plausibly guess about the underlying technology? Author's home page: www.ursasoft.com.
• James L. Ford: "Buddhism, mythology, and The Matrix"
  It has become a commonplace that the film contains allusions to numerous religious traditions. The only way to assess the significance of each such religion in the film is by carefully analysing the film from each perspective. This is a calm and clear exposition of the basic ideas of Buddhism, and as good an analysis of The Matrix from a Buddhist perspective as one can hope for. As becomes apparent in this essay, the film actually has very little in common with Buddhism. Ford has tried hard to find Buddhist thinking in it, but the fact remains that the Wachowski Brothers were not primarily tune in to Buddhism. Author's home page: www.unomaha.edu/~wwwjrf/fordbio.htm.
• Peter J. Boettke: "Human freedom and the red pill"
  This is the one disappointing essay in the compilation. Like a number of other commentators, Boettke misreads the film as claiming that the people in the Matrix have a completed determined and scripted life. In fact, they have free will and interact fully with fellow human beings. Only the physical world is virtual; other people are real in the Matrix. Boettke uses this incorrect reading to launch an imaginative but mistaken interpretation of The Matrix as a defence of right-wing politics. Author's home page: www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/pboettke/.
• Paul Fontana: "Finding God in The Matrix"
  Like Ford's Buddhist analysis of the film, Fontan's essay does a good job of teasing out the Christian symbolism of the film. Again, this is a worthy project but ultimately fails to capture the essence of the film because the film is predominantly Gnostic, not Christian. Fontana draws out some good points of analogy that I had not spotted before, such as comparing Neo's assault on the government building to Jesus' driving the money-changers out of the Temple; and the correspondence of Trinity to Mary Magdelene. Even there, however, Fontana acknowledges defects in those analogies from a Christian perspective, yet those defects disappear from a Gnostic perspective. For example, Fontana is troubled by Neo and Trinity's incipient romance, which seems to contradict the picture of Jesus and Mary Magdelene that the we get in the canonical New Testament. Yet, the Gnostic Nag Hammadi texts reveal that Jesus often kissed Mary Magdelene on the mouth. Fundamentally, however, it is the Gnostic belief that our world is a virtual construct created by a deceptive deity that shows that the film is aligned to the original sect of Gnosticism, not to the later established church of Christianity.
• Ray Kurzweil: "The human machine merger: are we heading for The Matrix"
  Kurzweil explores a different approach to the brain-computer interface, using nanotechnology to build microscopoic 'nanobots' that swim around the brain, linked by microscopic radio transmitters. Kurzweil has some interesting things to say about the speed and direction of technological change. Kurzweil affirms the viison of totally immersive virtual reality but thinks it would be achieved using nanobots in the brain, not the cabling shown in the film. Author's home page: www.kurzweilai.net.
• Bill Joy: "Why the future doesn't need us"
  Not much about The Matrix, but some valid concerns about the ramifications of placing powerful technologies in the hands of fallible humans. Author's home page: www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/ceo/mgt_joy.html.
• Nick Bostrom: "Are we living in The Matrix? The simulation argument"
  This is the joker in the pack. This is a brilliant exercise in following a line of reasoning to a whacky conclusion long after common sense tells you that you're on the wrong tracks. Author's home page: www.nickbostrom.com/.
• Glossary

"Exploring the Matrix: Visions of the Cyber Present"

Edited by Karen Haber

Published by St. Martin's Press (May 2003), 272 pages. Available from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.

There are more contributors than in the other anthologies, but the essays are shorter:

• Pat Cadigan, "Introduction"
• Bruce Sterling, "Every Other Movie is the Blue Pill"
  Praises the slick movie-making but criticises the ethical and political insight of the rebels.
• Stephen Baxter, "The Real Matrix"
  Some thoughts on whole-world virtual realities.
• John Shirley, "The Matrix: Know Thyself"
• Darrel Anderson, "Life Imitates Art (Yes, It's News!)"
• Paul di Filippo, "Literary Influences on the Matrix"
• Kathleen Ann Goonan, "More than You'll Ever Know: Down the Rabbit Hole of the Matrix"
• Mike Resnick, "The Matrix and the Star Maker"
• Walter Jon Williams, "Yuen Woo-Ping and the Art of Flying"
  An informative piece on the people and history behind cinematic kung-fu.
• Dean Motter, "Alice in Metropolis - Or It's All Done with Mirrors"
• Ian Watson, "The Matrix as Simulacrum"
• Joe Haldeman, "The Matrix as Sci-Fi"
  Useful background material on the place of The Matrix within the genre of science-fiction.
• David Brin, "Tomorrow May be Different"
• Alan Dean Foster, "Revenge of the Nerds, Part X"
• Karen Haber, "Reflections in a Cyber Eye"
• James Patrick Kelly, "Meditations on the Singular Matrix"
• Kevin J. Anderson, "The Matrix Made Me Do It"
  An excellent piece on violence in The Matrix and its societal significance. Useful statistical snippets and quotes questioning any direct correlation between screen violence and real violence.
• Rick Berry, "Dreaming Real"

"The Matrix and Philosophy"

Edited by William Irwin

Published by Open Court, Chicago and La Salle, Illinois (October 2002), 280 pages. Available from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.

Laura Miller has a review of this book in salon.com (December 2002). She likes the classical philosophical essays: "Particularly good is David Mitsuo Nixon, who argues ... that 'the Matrix possibility' is conceptually impossible." My own view is that the anti-Matrix essays in the early parts of the book are completely inadequate. On the other hand, Miller writes "The most disappointing essays come from the postmodernist, feminist and Marxist critics -- there need to be stronger signs of intellectual rigor here, particularly if you're going to call your piece 'Penetrating Keanu: New Holes, but the Same Old Shit', which borders on self-parody", but I thought Freeland's 'Penetrating Keanu' essay was the most stimulating in the book. Miller and I do almost agree on Zizek's essay, which she describes as "intermittently comprehensible", but I somehow missed the comprehensible intermissions of his effort.

Table of contents:

• Part 1: How do you know?
  • William Irwin: "Computers, caves, and oracles: Neo and Socrates"
  • Gerald J. Erion & Barry Smith: "Skepticism, morality, and The Matrix"
  • David Mitsuo Nixon: "The Matrix possibility"
  • Carolyn Korsmeyer: "Seeing, believing, touching, truth"
• Part 2: The desert of the real
  • Jorge J.E. Gracia & Jonathan J. Sanford: "The metaphysics of The Matrix"
  • Jason Holt: "The machine-made ghost: or, the philosophy of mind, Matrix style"
  • Daniel Barwick: "Neo-materialism and the death of the subject"
  • Theodore Schick, Jr: "Fate, freedom, and foreknowledge"
• Part 3: Down the rabbit hole of ethics
  • Michael Brannigan: "There is no spoon: a Buddhist mirror"
  • Gregory Bassham: "The religion of The Matrix and the problems of pluralism"
  • Charles L. Griswold, Jr: "Happiness and Cypher's choice: is ignorance bliss?"
  • James Lawler: "We are (the) One! Kant explains how to manipulate the Matrix"
• Part 4: Virtual themes
  • Thomas S. Hibbs: "Notes from the underground: nihilism and The Matrix"
  • Jennifer L. McMahon: "Popping a bitter pill: existential authenticity in The Matrix and Nausea"
  • Sarah E. Worth: "The paradox of real response to neo-fiction"
  • Deborah Knight & George McKnight: "Real genre and virtual philosophy"
• Part 5: De-constructing The Matrix
  • Cynthia Freeland: "Penetrating Keanu: new holes, but the same old shit"
  • Martin A. Danahay & David Rieder: "The Matrix, Marx, and the coppertop's life"
  • David Weberman: "The Matrix simulation and the postmodern age"
  • Slavoj Zizek: "The Matrix: or, the two sides of perversion"

"The Reality Within The Matrix"

By Kristenea M. LaVelle

Published by Saxco Publishing (February 2002), 265 pages. Available from amazon.com but not amazon.co.uk.

"BFI Modern Classics: The Matrix"

By Joseph Clover

"Idealism The Philosophy of The Matrix"

by Harun Yahya

2. WEB SITES

Warner Brothers

According to Chris Grau's interview on www.kuow.org, the Wachowski brothers did originally intend there to be a section of the web site, but it wasn't until after the success of The Matrix that Warner Brothers were happy to have it onboard.

• First batch of essays, November 2002
  • Colin McGinn: "The Matrix of Dreams"
  • Hubert Dreyfus: &Stephen Dreyfus: "The Brave New World of The Matrix"
  • Richard Hanley: "Never the Twain Shall Meet: Reflections on The First Matrix"
  • Iakovos Vasiliou: "Reality, What Matters, and The Matrix."
  • Kevin Warwick: "The Matrix - Our Future?"
  • Frances Flannery-Dailey and Rachel Wagner: "Wake Up! Gnosticism & Buddhism in The Matrix"
    A clear and perceptive account of the main features of both Gnosticism and Buddhism in relation to The Matrix. The authors convey a clear and in-depth understanding of both these religious traditions and the film.
• Second batch of essays, March 2003
  • James Pryor: "What's So Bad About Living in The Matrix?"
  • David Chalmers: "The Matrix as Metaphysics"
    A new and clever analysis of the old brain-in-a-vat thought-experiment that philosophers have been using to illustrate the mind-brain problem.
    (See also review by Peter B. Lloyd)
  • Julia Driver: "Artificial Ethics"

KOUW radio interview

Matrix Essays

www.matrixessays.blogspot.com.

Tony Smith has some interesting calculations about the Matrix:

www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/Matrix.html

Glossary

More general sites

• MatrixFans.Net
  One of two big Matrix fan sites, with a large and vigorous discussion forum.
• The Last Free City
  The other big fan site. The standard of postings, both here in TLFC and in MFN, is somewhat higher than in the wide-open newsgroups, but it still has quite a low signal-to-noise ratio. You have to read about twenty low-grade postings for every nugget of information or insight. If you spend enough time trawling, you can certainly learn things. And it can be a useful place to get theories tested and criticised by hostile readers. But be aware that it is time-consuming work to plough through the thousands of threads.

  
  

• Matrix-Explained
  "Secrets, explanations and background info of the Matrix trilogy. Collection of theories regarding the Matrix trilogy. Matrix secrets explained and hidden hints revealed."

Matrix applications

• www.themeatrix.com
  A brilliant application of the Wachowskis' thinking to factory farming.