Movie "The Matrix": Plato's and Aristotle's Philosophies

The Matrix, a Wachowski fellow's movie, conforms many modern and traditional ideas regarding theВ truth behind the facts. Moreover, the dominant framework of the film is adapted from 'Plato's Allegory of the Cave.' (Jowett) The film reflects the philosophy of Plato almost exactly in structure. The theory is about prisoners who are shackled in a cave since childhood, facing just a wall. Throughout the wall, their shadows of different shapes of animals and plants and a sound of fire that echoes at the back of the prisoners.

Therefore, they consider imprisonment as the only reality; however, they only envision the shadow of images.

One of the captives will be released, will leave the cave and will be the first to be blinded by the light, and therefore, he will realize that what he saw before was not the reality. The same philosophy is mirrored in the movie 'The Matrix.' In the film, Neo is entangled inside a fake world constructed by a computer.

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Machines designed the software, that captiveВ the world. While in Plato’s Allegory of Cave, captives recognize the cave’s reality, and hence the real-world outside cave. Furthermore, the movie adapts the philosophy of the dark cave, where captives are mentally, not physically bound. Although they are not free, they assume they are free. Also, such a conviction prohibits them from doing anything regarding their incarceration.

Therefore, В the central idea of both Plato’s and The Matrix is the concept and reality of restricting knowledge by humankind. Another movie, 'Inception, ' where people also are trapped by false reality in the dreamscapes.

Another philosopher and the student of Plato, Aristotle questioned, 'Are Human Free?' Many philosophers think we are all free, but others argue against this. One of the main topics concerning this question is free will. There is free will in any decision we take. Yet there are good and bad decisions. For a person to exercise free will, he needs to be under his control. Metaphysics is the concept given by Aristotle. Metaphysics is a philosophical position that investigates the overarching framework of reality and its foundation. The film Matrix has many concepts regarding metaphysics.

The first concept is, 'Is the world real or not?' Clearly, in the film, there are two alternate worlds: the matrix and the real world. This makes us question whether what we see is real or just programmed. Do we exist or are we fake? Another concept that we found in the matrix is destiny. Neo sets on with Morpheus to destroy the matrix. Along the way, Morpheus tells him that he was destined to destroy the matrix. Here we see that some part of Neo is controlled by his destiny. He was destined to destroy the matrix. One concept also in the Matrix is whether we can be free. This can be seen by the way the story itself is created. First, humans are under the control of the aliens, but when that ends, they are in control of other people. For example government. This means also that even before the war, people were no free and therefore, did not have free will. Reality is not as obvious in the Matrix, which embraces people to question the concreteness of reality.

Works Cited

'The Internet Classics Archive: Physics by Aristotle.' The Internet Classics Archive | Physics by Aristotle, classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html.

Jowett, Benjamin. The Dialogues of Plato (428/27 — 348/47 BCE). Team, Glogster. 'Metaphysics.' Go to Your Profile, edu.glogster.com/glog/metaphysics/25a41i9r7mg.

Tim. 'Matrix: A Philosophical Analysis.' Philosophy & Philosophers, Philosophy & Philosophers, 10 Sept. 2012, www.the-philosophy.com/matrix-philosophical-analysis/amp.