Editing The Matrix (section)

=== Philosophy ===
In ''The Matrix'', a copy of [[Jean Baudrillard]]'s philosophical work ''[[Simulacra and Simulation]]'', which was published in French in 1981, is visible on-screen as [[Concealing objects in a book|"the book used to conceal]] disks",<ref name="Jamie Allen">{{cite web |last=Allen |first=Jamie |date=November 28, 2012 |title=The Matrix and Postmodernism |url=https://prezi.com/ybxwvr21r9lz/the-matrix-and-postmodernism/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221063150/https://prezi.com/ybxwvr21r9lz/the-matrix-and-postmodernism/ |archive-date=December 21, 2019 |access-date=April 15, 2019 |website=Prezi.com}}</ref><ref name="Simulacra"/> and Morpheus quotes the phrase "desert of the real" from it.<ref name="Poole Baudrillard">{{cite web |last=Poole |first=Steven |date=March 7, 2007 |title=Obituary: Jean Baudrillard |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/mar/07/guardianobituaries.france |access-date=November 15, 2012 |website=Guardian.co.uk |publisher=[[Guardian Media Group]] |archive-date=May 11, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200511020223/https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/mar/07/guardianobituaries.france |url-status=live }} The term "desert of the real" first originated from [[Jorge Luis Borges]]' short story "[[On Exactitude in Science]]" (1946), which Baudrillard references in his essay.</ref> "The book was required reading"<ref name="Jamie Allen"/> for the actors prior to filming.<ref name="Simulacra"/><ref>{{cite web |last=Jobs |first=Post |date=March 14, 2007 |title=Remember Baudrillard |url=http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee135 |access-date=January 29, 2012 |website=Inside Higher Ed |archive-date=February 11, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200211225117/https://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee135 |url-status=live }}</ref> However, Baudrillard himself said that ''The Matrix'' misunderstands and distorts his work.<ref name="Poole Baudrillard"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Le Nouvel Observateur with Baudrillard |url=http://www.empyree.org/divers/Matrix-Baudrillard_english.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080113012028/http://www.empyree.org/divers/Matrix-Baudrillard_english.html |archive-date=January 13, 2008 |access-date=January 31, 2010 |website=Le Nouvel Observateur}}</ref> Some interpreters of ''The Matrix'' mention Baudrillard's philosophy to support their claim "that the [film] is an [[allegory]] for contemporary experience in a heavily commercialized, media-driven society, especially in developed countries".<ref name="Jamie Allen"/> The influence of ''[[The Matrixial Gaze]]'', the philosophical-psychoanalytical concept of [[Bracha L. Ettinger]] on the archaic matrixial space that resists the field of simulacra,<ref>Ettinger, Bracha Lichtenberg, The Matrixial Gaze, Leeds University 1995.</ref><ref>Ettinger, Bracha L., The Matrixial Borderspace. [Selected Essays from 1994-1999). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.</ref><ref>Ettinger, Bracha L., Matrixial Subjectivity, Aesthetics, Ethics. Vol I : 1990-2000. Edited with Introductions by Griselda Pollock. Pelgrave Macmillan, 2020.</ref> "was brought to the public's attention through the writings of art historians such as [[Griselda Pollock]] and film theorists such as Heinz-Peter Schwerfel".<ref>Schwerfel, Heinz-Peter,  Kino und Kunst. Koln: Dumont, 2003.</ref><ref name="Jamie Allen"/> In addition to Baudrillard and Ettinger, the Wachowskis were also significantly influenced by [[Kevin Kelly (editor)|Kevin Kelly]]'s ''[[Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World]]'', and [[Dylan Evans]]'s ideas on [[evolutionary psychology]].<ref name="Screenplay"/>

Philosopher [[William Irwin (philosopher)|William Irwin]] suggests that the idea of the "Matrix" – a generated reality invented by malicious machines – is an allusion to [[Descartes]]' "[[First Meditation]]", and his idea of an [[evil demon]]. The Meditation hypothesizes that the perceived world might be a comprehensive illusion created to deceive us.<ref name="Salon philosophy">{{cite web |last=Miller, Laura |date=December 5, 2002 |title="The Matrix and Philosophy" by William Irwin, ed. |url=http://www.salon.com/2002/12/05/matrix_2/ |access-date=November 15, 2012 |website=[[Salon (website)|Salon]] |archive-date=March 28, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200328194611/https://www.salon.com/2002/12/05/matrix_2/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The same premise can be found in [[Hilary Putnam]]'s [[brain in a vat]] scenario proposed in the 1980s.<ref name="Salon philosophy"/> A connection between the premise of ''The Matrix'' and [[Plato]]'s [[Allegory of the Cave]] has also been suggested. The allegory is related to Plato's [[theory of Forms]], which holds that the true essence of an object is not what we perceive with our senses, but rather its quality, and that most people perceive only the shadow of the object and are thus limited to false perception.<ref name="Influence Screened"/>

The philosophy of [[Immanuel Kant]] has also been claimed as another influence on the film, and in particular how individuals within the Matrix interact with one another and with the system. Kant states in his ''[[Critique of Pure Reason]]'' that people come to know and explore our world through synthetic means (language, etc.), and thus this makes it rather difficult to discern truth from falsely perceived views. This means people are their own agents of deceit, and so in order for them to know truth, they must choose to openly pursue truth. This idea can be examined in Agent Smith's monologue about the first version of the Matrix, which was designed as a human [[utopia]], a perfect world without suffering and with total happiness. Agent Smith explains that, "it was a disaster. No one accepted the program. Entire crops [of people] were lost." The machines had to amend their choice of programming in order to make people subservient to them, and so they conceived the Matrix in the image of the world in 1999. The world in 1999 was far from a utopia, but still humans accepted this over the suffering-less utopia. According to William Irwin this is Kantian, because the machines wished to impose a perfect world on humans in an attempt to keep people content, so that they would remain completely submissive to the machines, both consciously and subconsciously, but humans were not easy to make content.<ref>Irwin, William. "We Are (the) One!" ''The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real''. Chicago: Open Court, 2002. 138–54. Print.</ref>