[Buddha-l] Re: Withdrawal of the senses

[Michael LaTorra]

"In the Matrix, which pill would you take, the red or the blue?" 
http://www.arrod.co.uk/essays/matrix.php

The question of which pill to take illustrates the personal aspect of the 
decision to study philosophy. Do you live on in ignorance (and potentially 
bliss) or do you lead what Aristotle called 'the examined life'...

The Matrix is a film filled with religious and philosophical symbolism. The 
plot supposes that humans live in vats many years in the future, being fed 
false sensory information by a giant virtual reality computer (the Matrix). 
The perpetrators of this horror are machines of the future who use humans as a 
source of power. Humans are literally farmed.

The central character of the film, Neo, is presented to us in the opening part 
of the film as a loner who is searching for a mysterious character called 
Morpheus (named after the Greek god of dreams and sleep). He is also trying to 
discover the answer to the question "What is the Matrix?"

Morpheus contacts Neo just as the machines (posing as sinister 'agents') are 
trying to keep Neo from finding out any more. When Morpheus and Neo meet, 
Morpheus offers Neo two pills. The red pill will answer the question "what is 
the Matrix?" (by removing him from it) and the blue pill simply for life to 
carry on as before. As Neo reaches for the red pill Morpheus warns 
Neo "Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."

The film as a whole and especially the choosing scene is deeply compelling. 
Why is the choice between what you believe you know and an unknown 'real' 
truth so fascinating? How could a choice possibly be made? On the one hand 
everyone you love and everything that you have built you life upon. One the 
other the promise only of truth.


The question then is not about pills, but what they stand for in these 
circumstances. The question is asking us whether reality, truth, is worth 
pursuing. The blue pill will leave us as we are, in a life consisting of 
habit, of things we believe we know. We are comfortable, we do not need truth 
to live. The blue pill symbolises commuting to work every day, or brushing 
your teeth.

The red pill is an unknown quantity. We are told that it can help us to find 
the truth. We don't know what that truth is, or even that the pill will help 
us to find it. The red pill symbolises risk, doubt and questioning. In order 
to answer the question, you can gamble your whole life and world on a reality 
you have never experienced.

However, in order to investigate which course of action to take we need to 
investigate why the choice is faced. Why should we even have to decide whether 
to pursue truth?

The answer in short, is inquisitiveness. Many people throughout human 
existence have questioned and enquired. Most of them have not been scientists 
or doctors or philosophers, but simply ordinary people asking 'what if?' 
or 'why?' Asking these questions ultimately leads us to a choice. Do you 
continue to ask and investigate, or do you stop and never ask again? This in 
essence, is the question posed to Neo in the film.

So what are the advantages of taking the blue pill? As one of the characters 
in the film says, "ignorance is bliss" Essentially, if the truth is unknown, 
or you believe that you know the truth, what is there to question or worry 
about?

By accepting what we are told and experience life can be easier. There is the 
social pressure to 'fit in', which is immensely strong in most cultures. 
Questioning the status quo carries the danger of ostracism, possibly 
persecution. This aspect has a strong link with politics. People doing well 
under the current system are not inclined to look favourably on those who 
question the system. Morpheus says to Neo "You have to understand that many 
people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so 
hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."

The system also has a place for you, an expected path to follow. This removes 
much of the doubt and discomfort experienced by a trailblazer.

Another argument on the side of the blue pill is how does anyone know that the 
status quo is not in fact the truth? The act of simply questioning does not 
infer a lack of validity on the questioned. Why not assume that your 
experience is innocent until proven guilty? Just accept everything?

So if the arguments for the blue pill are so numerous, why take the red pill? 
Why pursue truth even though it may be unpalatable and the journey to it hard? 
In the film, Neo risks death to escape the virtual reality and discovers a 
brutal reality from which he cannot return. As he discovers the trouble with 
asking questions is that the answers are not necessarily what you want to hear.

To justify taking the red pill we might ask what is the purpose of an ignorant 
existence? Further still, what is there in merely existing? Simply existing 
brings humans down to the level of objects; they might have utility or even 
purpose, but where is the meaning? Existence without meaning is surely not 
living your life, but just experiencing it. As Trinity says to Neo, "The 
Matrix cannot tell you who you are."
   Randomness 
  Shotgun learning? No, I'm not going after the squirrels, racoons, and skunks 
that live in the back yard. Rather, I'm hopping onto the net to sift through 
items in some favourite hangouts just to see what's out there today. It's more 
edgy and less predictable than reading the New York Times  
 
Jay Cross - Source 
 
 about randomness  

Given the potential disadvantages of choosing the red pill, the motivation for 
discovering the truth must then be very strong. The film makes much of this 
point. Trinity says to Neo "It's the question that drives us, Neo." and 
Morpheus compares the motivation for Neo's search to "a splinter in your mind -
 driving you mad." The motivation for answering the question is obviously 
strong as the answer will help us to find the meaning in our lives.

What we are looking at here is the drive to answer a question, but the key to 
this is what drove the question in the first place. The asking of questions 
about our environment our experience and ourselves is fundamental to the human 
condition. Children ask a seemingly never-ending stream of questions from an 
early age. It is only with education and socialisation that some people stop 
asking these questions. However, we remain, as it were, hard-wired to enquire.

This is an inevitable consequence of consciousness. A being with a mind, 
conscious of itself and its existence, experiencing a reality, needs to 
organise the data that it receives from its senses. Simply observing and 
recording does not allow for consciousness. It is what we do with that 
information that allows us to think. In order to process and store the vast 
amount of information received, the human brain attempts to identify patterns 
in the data; looking for the patterns behind what is experienced. This is 
asking questions of the sensory information, and requires reasoning. By 
definition a conscious mind seeks to know. Knowing something requires more 
than just data, but intelligence or reasoning applied to that data. To attempt 
to obtain knowledge we must therefore question the data our mind receives; 
thus, consciousness questions.

So the metaphor of the journey to truth that Neo takes is complete. The 
journey starts with a question, there is a search for the answer and the 
answer may be reached. This shows us that the journey does not start with Neo 
choosing between the pills, or with ourselves deciding whether to question. 
The act of asking the question is itself the starting point as the aim of 
asking the question is to seek truth and knowledge.

We have established that consciousness is aware and seeks knowledge and that 
thus the conscious mind must question. To question is to seek the truth and 
start on the journey to knowledge. Therefore the choice between the pills is 
surely made for us. The fact that we are conscious appears to require us to 
take the red pill.

However, this can be simply countered by someone who would prefer to take the 
blue pill. They may wish to seek the truth in a different way, or in a less 
mind jarring set of circumstances. They can choose the blue pill and not deny 
their consciousness, but to stop seeking the truth entirely would be to deny 
their consciousness.

Thus we are philosophically driven to seek the truth and the act of 
questioning whether to seek it is in itself seeking the truth. As conscious 
minds we will always seek the truth. However, the choice over the red or blue 
pills is not solely a choice between whether to question or not, it is a 
personal choice on the method of discovering the truth.


Regards,

Michael LaTorra

mlatorra at nmsu.edu

Department of English
New Mexico State University
PO Box 30001 MSC 3E
Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001



Quoting buddha-l-request at mailman.swcp.com:

> From: Bernie Simon <bsimon at toad.net>
> Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Withdrawal of the senses
> To: buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> Message-ID: <21bba042771b5e3ae622d6a93df96d72 at toad.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
> 
> On Nov 18, 2006, at 2:00 PM,  wrote:
> 
> > There is only one thing that is not clear from your explanation. Which 
> > color
> > pill does one take to wake up and never go back to sleep again. I 
> > assume that
> > is the blue pill, the one that everyone takes. That's the one I want.
> >
> > Can you get these pills on-line from a Canadian pharmacist? I'm 
> > guessing the
> > pills would be prohibitively expensive in the USA.
> 
> 
> It;s called television and you can buy one in any department store. 
> There are no contraindications on the label, except avoid sitting to 
> close.
> 
> I am gross and perverted, I'm obsessed and deranged,
> I have existed for years, but very little has changed.
> I'm the tool of the government and industry too,
> For I am destined to rule and regulate you.
> I may be vile and pernicious, but you can't look away,
> I make you think I'm delicious with the stuff that I say.
> I'm the best you can get.
> Have you guessed me yet?
> I'm the slime oozing out from your TV set.
> 
> (Frank Zappa)
> 
> ----
> Bernie Simon / Jinpa Zangpo
> weird but harmless