1. Virtual Dialectic Maggie Renfro COMS 465- Project

2. The Virtual Dialectic  “Rethinking The Matrix and Its Significance”  Question asked:  Should Neo swallow the blue bill or the red-pill?  Resulting in staying in the computer-generated, not advanced world, with no recollection of what has happened  Resulting in “awakening”, living the virtual world, and into what more advanced virtual world  “See the Matrix for what it really is” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frxvwSrertY

3. The Virtual Dialectic  Truth vs. Deception  Being vs. Appearance  Artifice vs. Reality  Authenticity vs. Inauthenticity  (Gunkel, Pg. 103)

4. The Red Pill  “The Right Choice”  Completes the film  The “Hero of the Real”  Becomes the “man” of The Matrix  “The the face of impossible odds, he takes control of his life, beats the system, gets the girl, and apparently saves the human race from machinic domination.”

5. Cypher  Opposite of Neo  Bad choices  In it for himself  Betrays his friends and family  “If Neo’s interpreted as a Christ-like savior, Cypher is “the Judas Iscariot of the story”  The Matrix  Honesty rather than a life of reassuring lies

6. The Selection  William Irwin  Editor of the Matrix  Obvious choice of the red pill  Predictable  Two Reasons  The Matrix would not exist  Necessary for Neo to swallow the red pill  Drama  Supported by 2,500 year old philosophical matrix

7. The Selection Cont.  Irwin states it is a bold decision from Neo  Conforms  “the will to truth”  Neo choosing the Red Pill, will in the end help him find the truth and live within a world of all honesty  Who would choose the Red Pill?  Why?

8. Michael Heim  Cyberspace  2 books  Both explain the world outside of the Matrix and the importance of honesty  The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace  The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality  Released 10 years before the Matrix  Zionists – real world  Losing ourselves in the process of cyberspace  Experience of reality in the cyberspace experience

9. Comparison  The Matrix: Multiple questions and concerns  Real vs. Truth  Truman Show  Truman Burbank  Lives life in a television set, where everyone in the movie is acting for the television show.  The end shows that Truman comes to face the reality and the true world  Similar to the Matrix

10. Why Not the Blue Pill?  “Life in the matrix appears to be not only less attractive but outright disgusting” – (Gunkel, page 111)  Each part of the trilogy shows different parts of the world that when choosing the pill, the outcome is the most important part  David Weberman  Blue pill = best quality decision  Better life

11. The Blue Pill  Kevin Warwick  Included in the Matrix System  “Cyborg” or “post human”  Different abilities in the matrix system  Warwick, Weberman  Argues that the blue pill is real and true  “the blue pill does not lead to something that is the opposite of true reality, but constitutes the doorway to an alternative and possibly improved reality” (page 114)  Neo-luddite or reality created virtually

12. Why does it matter which pill?  Not a simple decision between colors  Thinking out side of the box  Positive and negatives of each situation  Metaphysics: Opposite importance’s  Virtual Reality is a different order of reality  How is it important?  Why can you get stuck in the virtual world?

13. Virtual Reality  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO4k2Rvs9 4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO4k2Rvs9 4I  What does it do?  Why would we want to use it?  “Our destiny is to become what we think, to have our thoughts become our bodies and our bodies become our mind” –Terence McKenna