실재의 인식과 선택의 문제

The Recognition of Reality and the Problem of Choice in The Matrix

Just as a prisoner who sees the real world for the first time outside Plato's cave is suspicious of what he saw in the cave, Neo is suspicious of what he has experienced in the Matrix, a kind of Plato's cave, when he sees the real world for the first time. Just as a prisoner realizes that what he thought was real is actually shadows, Neo recognizes that the life of the dream world is an illusion. Just as a prisoner suffers when adjusting his eyes to the sunlight, Neo has a difficult time adjusting himself to the world of reality. Just as a prisoner who eventually becomes aware of reality and returns to the cave in order to inform other prisoners of what he has realized, Neo, who perceives the reality of the dream world, finally accepts his own identity as "the One" who should wake up the ignorant human beings under the control of the Matrix, "a computer-generated dream world." Neo follows the experiences of the prisoner in the cave in his awareness of reality. Morpheus asks Neo to make a choice between the red pill and the blue pill. The blue pill represents the dream world of the Matrix; the red pill represents the world of reality. This paper discusses the process of Neo's recognition and the problems posed in the choice between the real world and the dream world with reference to Plato's allegory of the cave.