〈Matrix〉: 잃어버린 고전을 찾아서

The Matrix: Looking for Lost Western Classicism

The Matrix, a film by Lorry and Andy Wachowski, is a philosophical movie dealing with "fundamental questions" posed by such Western philosophers as Socrates, Plato, and Descartes, and even a contemporary question as Baudrillard raised in his teachings. Oracle, a prophet proclaiming who is the One, displays Socrates's "Know Thyself" dictum in Latin on the wall of her kitchen, trying to divine its meaning when coming in and out of the kitchen and even encouraging her visitors to copy the Greek philosopher. The painstaking efforts of Neo, a protagonist, and the crew of Nebuchadnezzar to save the inhabitants in the computerized system of Matrix can be likened to Plato's Cave Allegory in The Republic. Neo enlightens himself by following the philosophical pathway Descartes teaches in Meditations on the First Philosophy. Neo learns from Descartes how to open his eyes toward the external world; in other words, how to tell what is real from what is unreal. That is why Neo is so engrossed in discussing Descartes's definition of the real with Morpheus in the first half of the film. In addition to the traditional philosophers, Neo gets help from a modern French thinker, Jean Baudrillard, to decode the multiple signs of post-modern society like "simulacra and simulation." As Neo gets close to understanding the reality of Matrix and the cutting edge separating the real from the unreal, he is automatically transformed from Thomas Anderson, his old self, to Neo, his new self. The dramatic metamorphosis is possible not because he was designated as the One (savior or Messiah) but because he becomes conscious of what is truth. By truth, after mastering the traditional philosophies, he means that the One does not signify a single person acclaimed by Oracle but multiple figures who succeed in telling the real from the unreal; and that the two worlds of Matrix and Nebuchadnezzar have no definite borderline; and that we need a new paradigm to redefine post-modern society where both reality and "virtual reality" coexist. Those who live in "virtual reality" are not normal settlers. They are what Pierre Levy calls "new nomads." They are "new" in the sense that they roam about in new spheres of cyberspace while the original nomads on the plains are chasing after food. Juxtaposing reality with the cyberworld, Neo intends to build a new human community, a world of "collective intelligence" in Levy's words.