Tensor product? But I...

[dmaze]

Saw Matrix Reloaded last night, thus achieving my goal of seeing it comparatively soon but not in an insanely huge mob. I think my end conclusion is that it'd be a really good book: the action sequences were not that impressive in my mind, but it would have been nice to go back and reread some of the longish dialog sections. The infamous sex scene made an excellent time to visit the rest room.


At the end of the movie, I really did want to review Neo's conversation with the Oracle. But I also wanted to go over the Architect conversation two or three more times, since that attempted to explain most of the world. It also wasn't clear that the Architect was actually aware of the Agent Smith Issue.

What is Smith after? He seems to have gained some spiffiness in the Matrix, but "kill Neo" is an overly simplistic game goal (and something he's visibly incapable of on his own). It doesn't seem like he's entirely aligned with the Machine side of the board either, though. Is his goal really "kill all the humans, I mean all of them"?

I have this vague hypothesis that Neo hasn't actually left the Matrix (and consequently that there's a "reality Matrix"). This explains why he was able to stop the machines attacking, since he can manipulate Matrices. It also adds odd meta-levels to the world, though.

...but Google is able to find me a copy of the Architect speech. Hmmmm...

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

G and I spent a ton of time trying to deconstruct Smith after the movie. One of our conversations started with him arguing one thing and ended with him arguing the complete opposite thing. Yeah.

I do also tend to think that Smith is acting outside of Official Matrix Control -- but I don't know what his goal is or how much control or awareness the Matrix does have. Especially since -- on the one hand -- it seems that the Matrix has ubiquitous-power capability -- but on the other hand -- it's not exercising that power, or else is plan is even weirder than we can tell so far, or else we were wrong and it's such a complex system it can't keep track of itself. (And it has, then, in a sense, its own free will? OK, too weird.)

And yeah, I await an explanation of the Neo/machine thing too. I mean, it would be totally consistent for him to be able to manipulate their programs and hence stop them, but there would need to be a medium of interaction, and I'm not really ready to postulate telepathy. On the other hand, we do know that the Matrix/machines have some kind of control inside Zion -- they built it, and Smith could psychically suborn that assassin dude (ie events which happen inside the Matrix can permanently alter stuff putatively outside it, so maybe this can go in reverse?).

Zion could be a Matrix, too. But I would find that terribly unsatisfying. Infinite recursion would be a lame plot, and it would render irrelevant all that totally cool stuff the Architect said. (Although I guess it would create a possibility that the sixth matrix is the sixth nested matrix and Neo has to climb back through all of them and vanquish the previous chosen ones, which would at least be an awfully cool fight scene. But still a lame plot.)

[dmaze]

Well, one of the things we were hypothesizing online today was that all of the screens in the Architect scene were showing different Matrices running in parallel. So the recursion is only two levels deep; reality runs lots of artifical Zions, and each of those has an associated Matrix, and the Architect is lying (perhaps only by implication, though; he never actually says that there have been five previous Neos, only that there was a "systemic anamoly" and that Neo had "predecessors"). This explains how Smith can exert control over bodies in Zion and how Neo can affect the machines, but it is admittedly unsatisfying as an overall explanation.

[(Anonymous)]

I think andromeda especially might find this analysis interesting:
http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/051803matrix.htm
This review is based on lots of philosophy - I really liked the way he explained it. Anyway I don't think having multiple layers of matrix would be lame at all...it totally breaks my head in fact. The architect's explanations and everything we think we know about the first matrix might only be valid in the next higher level matrix (the one that Zion is in) - begging the question why THAT matrix was created? It could be a completely different reason, a completely different set of oppressors, heck it might not even be on earth. Who knows? The more down-to-earth explanation is simply that Zion is part of the SAME matrix, since the machines planned for it from the start. They don't necessarily need to kick the 1% of doubters entirely out of the matrix, they just need to make them believe somehow, so they could have just coded in Zion to make them feel happy. This is supported by one point: if Zion was real, and the machines had actually destroyed it 5 times previous, then why did they have to dig again? Shouldn't the holes still be there? However I just thought of a counterargument as well...if Zion was in the matrix, and the machines wanted to kill them all, they could just go up to the real bodies and unplug them, couldn't they? hmm...
-mo