Matrix

             In the movie "The Matrix," the philosophical views of both Bertrand Russell and idealism are illustrated. In the movie "The Matrix," two worlds exist. One world is the matrix, which represents a neural interactive simulation of the world also known as the dream world, and the second world is the real world or Zion, which has only a few inhabitants. In the "matrix," the philosophical view of idealism which states that everything is mental things consisting of thoughts, feelings, sensations, desires, emotions, and minds is illustrated. In the real world, Russell's philosophical view that physical objects exist independently of people causing their sensations and that people have knowledge of inferences by acquaintance "with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference or any knowledge of truths."(Russell 46) In the passages that will follow, I will demonstrate the validity of Russell's view in the real world, and the idealist view in the matrix.
             Bertrand Russell, a philosopher and the author of The Problems of Philosophy, believed in the " . . . distinction between "appearance" and "reality," between what things seem to be and what they are."(Russell 9) Russell believed that our knowledge of properties of physical objects is obtained indirectly by inference from sense data, which we are directly acquainted with. In the movie, all of these properties are illustrated in the real world where Neo and many others have escaped to from the bondage of the matrix prison. In the real world, Neo makes inferences about the sense data that he receives from the real way of life. Neo receives his knowledge of what the matrix is and the difference between the matrix and the real world from sense data that he was acquainted with. For example, in order for Neo to know what the matrix was, he had to see it for himself. Neo had to free his mind from the poison of the matrix and become indirectly acquainted with the sense data of the real world in order to know the difference between the two.