Matrix Reloaded: the choice to be deceived

摘要

If you were given the option to see the truth (but to know that it would immediately change in the process), or not to see it (and be forever kept in the dark) which one would you choose? This paradoxical choice presents itself rather often. For centuries it has been testing the boundaries of the quantitative science. Now the same question has been posed to the viewers of Wachowski Brothers' The Matrix trilogy. We have come a long way in accepting, as The Matrix put it, that 'there is no spoon.' But how will we utilise the knowledge? Both The Matrix and science evoke, in their own ways, interrelated dynamic systems in which we live. They remind us of impossibility of talking about shapes without referring to the shapers; and therefore, in different ways, examine the porous border between the myth and 'real' while playing with our perceptions of authenticity and power. Scientific reductionism - the belief that the universe is fundamentally made up of parts - has been used for centuries as method to measure things and reality as 'quantifiable'. By quantifying reality, parts can be endlessly added and subtracted; historically this has been utilised for making a number of successful scientific discoveries and predictions. We have relied on techniques displayed in isolated analyses to obtain scientific results, but have also been witnesses of these results being used to propel the authority of separate strands of scientific (as opposed to non-scientific) analysis.